


Journeys End in Lovers Meeting

by hargroovy



Category: The Haunting of Hill House (TV 2018), The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson, The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Horror, Author Allison Hargreeves, Eudora Patch’s Dads, Flashbacks, Ghost Ben Hargreeves, Ghost Five, Good Brother Diego Hargreeves, Good Brother Luther Hargreeves, Good Sister Allison Hargreeves, Inspired by The Haunting of Hill House, Klaus is Just Klaus, Police Officer Diego Hargreeves, Psychic Abilities, Psychology Student Dave, Real Estate Agent Luther Hargreeves, What’s Reggie Hiding?, Who Killed Grace?, Yay Sisters, it’ll be very loosely based on a combination of the two, klaus and vanya are twins, you don’t have to be familiar with the hill house novel or series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2020-05-20 04:26:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 36,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19369708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hargroovy/pseuds/hargroovy
Summary: “It was a house without kindness, never meant to be lived in, not a fit place for people or for hope or for love. Exorcism cannot alter the countenance of a house; Hill House will stay as it was then, until it is destroyed.” - Allison Hargeeves, The Haunting of Hill HouseNearly two decades after the tragedy that made them famous, the Hargreeves children, now grown, have moved on with their lives, and from one another.There’s the realtor who deals in ironies.The writer, who sold their story, and paid a price in return.The police officer, who’ll save a thousand lives to repay the death he couldn’t prevent.The addict - recovering - who’s doing his best.And the psychic who sees danger ahead, even if they won’t believe her.They’re all content to leave the House where it belongs, in the childhood they’d rather forget. But we know, you and I, that it isn’t going to happen.We remember them. And Hill House doesn’t forget.





	1. Larks and Katydids

**Author's Note:**

> Luther sells a house; Vanya has a vision.

 

 

_“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for a hundred years before my family moved in, and might stand for a hundred more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”_

_\- Allison Hargreeves, The Haunting of Hill House_

**PART 1**

**LARKS AND KATYDIDS**

 

 

_Hill House, Then_

 

 

  
Luther woke to the sound of crying: it was the second time that week.

 

The sound was soft, a mewling; but every noise became sharper at night, in Hill House. Without the babble of city traffic, you could hear _everything_. Pipes in the walls popped in their sockets like rheumatic joints; he’d heard the scuffle of rodent feet, once, but he wouldn’t dare tell Allison (she hated anything small and scuttling.)

 

So, it was hard – to _not_ hear crying, when it was only a few rooms away. Not difficult for it to break through when there was only the weighty silence of the House that coiled around them; only the temperate patter of rain on the grey hills beyond. Impossible to ignore it and turn over, bundled in the cover, and go back to sleep.

 

There was only one thing he could do. Dutiful, Luther swung his legs out from under the comforter, wincing at the bite of night air as his hands sought the handle of the bedroom door. It opened with a creak, and the floorboards groaned under his weight; as if the House were being rudely poked and prodded from a sleep of its own. He shuddered, and pared his steps down to careful tip-toes. He was still getting used to the House. It was like a new shoe, still rigid and oddly shaped under his bare feet, but he’d grow into it. Soon he’d know where and where not to step.

 

In the hallway’s yellow glow (because his younger siblings had insisted on a night light) he was met by someone else’s shadow. Diego – slippered and scowling; he must be looking for the crying sound too, Luther thought. A closer look at the glare in those eyes, dark-rimmed from lack of sleep, taught him better: it was the look of someone on the prowl. Diego didn’t have a gentle touch.

 

“Which one is it this time?” He said, squinting at Luther. Before he could reply, the Pink Room door gave a squeak, and Allison stuck out her head. “Is someone crying?” She said, at the tail-end of a yawn.

 

“It sounds like Vanya,” Luther confirmed. Together, they glanced down towards the door of what had once been a nursery room. A sliver of black split the door ajar, and from this smallest of openings, without a doubt, came the muffled whimpers of their baby sister.

 

“It’s fine,” Luther said. “I’ve got it.”

 

“Should I wake Mom?” Asked Diego. His back straightened, and his chin jutted, in a valiant attempt to attain some authority to make up for being the shortest, and youngest, in their midnight gathering. Luther shook his head. No, waking their mother would wake their father, who would say they’d been silly to summon the whole house for something so little. He’d be disappointed in her, too. The second time this week; she was supposed to be getting better.

 

No. He was the eldest – this, he should be able to handle alone.

 

He could handle it. _He would._

 

“It’s fine,” he repeated. “Go back to sleep.”

 

Allison’s eyes were barely held open – she followed his advice without even disputing it. She tightened the knot on her fluffy bathrobe and shut the door behind her. Diego shot another glance at the nursery, and one in the general direction of Grace’s room, and hovered. He never took to following instructions, especially not from his siblings, _especially_ not from Luther. Tonight, though, the call of his pillow was stronger than the voice of resistance. He shrugged, returned to bed and to sleep, leaving Luther alone again in the grim yellow eye of the hallway.

 

He forced his feet along the running carpet, fleshy and tongue-coloured and licking a stripe down and down to the nursery door. He wrapped his arms around himself, trying to rub warmth through thin cotton sleeves. The air always seemed to grow colder around this part of the House. A draft, Grace was sure, she insisted – there had to be, they all felt it. She never found the fault, though. In the end, she chalked it down to the room’s position on the western side of the House, facing the lonely hills, from which wild eddies would descend to rattle the windows in their panes. The room itself unnerved Luther – it was something about the decoration, a frieze of zoo animals that the mad engineer of Hill House thought was appropriate for young children. Grace’d been reluctant to put the twins there, but Dr. Hargreeves said her concern was ridiculous. The older children, for other reasons, knew that the twins would get their way. Klaus and Vanya wouldn’t be separated.

 

At least, he thought, it’ll be dark in there. Too dark to see the hand-painted faces on the walls; bristled and tusked and antlered. He avoided the nursery, if he could, when it was light. Laying his hand flat against the door, he almost flinched.

 

The wood was freezing.

 

He was strong for a boy his age, he knew that, not gloating, just a fact; but sometimes, when trying to push open the doors in Hill House, he’d have to lean in with all his weight. Oak. Old – what you might call antique; don’t make them like this anymore, said Grace, approvingly, and she knocked on one of them, right where a spot of light pooled in the varnished, red-brown sheen. Doors were satisfying to knock on, in Hill House. They sounded how a knocked-on door should: firm, and brisk, like the noise a single exclamation mark makes in your head. Luther had nodded at her. What he didn’t say, was that even thick, heavy doors, no matter how old they are, shouldn’t _push back._

 

“Van,” he said. “It’s Luther – I’m coming in, okay?”

 

There was a whimper. It wasn’t the sound of a yes or a no, but it was one of distress, so he sucked in a breath and went inside.

 

Both of the twins were sat up in their matching beds: two heads of dark, pillow-tousled hair catching faint moonlight from the window. Klaus blinked at him, his eyes owlish and green and weighted with sleep. His gap-toothed smile greeted Luther, but then it faltered. He glanced to the bed beside him. Luther followed his gaze to Vanya: hugging her knees, her wide eyes trained right back at him. The sobs had ebbed into hiccups, but her eyes were swollen and snot and tears made glistening tracks down her flushed cheeks.

 

 _You poor thing_ , he wanted to say. He didn’t, say it, but the thought sat heavy in his chest.

 

“Are you okay, Van?” Is what Luther _did_ say. He approached the bed in the deliberate, non-threatening steps he’d used to catch a bird once – a swallow, he thought it’d been – that flew into the garage one summer. There was the same kind backed-into-a-corner look in Vanya’s eyes, and in the way her hands white-knuckle-clutched at the bed-sheets. She shook her head.

 

“Are you scared?” Luther asked, and this time she nodded. “That’s okay,” he said. “I get scared too, sometimes. Was it a bad dream?” She nodded her head once more. The mattress sagged against the added weight of his teenage body when he sat down beside her. “Yeah? And why are you awake, Klaus?”

 

Klaus cocked his head.

 

“Because Vanya’s awake,” he said, simply.

 

“What was it?” Luther said. Vanya sniffed, and then she spoke. Her trembling voice hovered at a whisper; so quiet, that he had to still his own breathing to hear her.

 

“She came back.”

 

 

Ah.

 

Luther should’ve guessed that She would be the culprit.

 

The appearance of Vanya’s nightmares coincided with the move to Hill House. Most likely, said their father, when it was just the two of them clearing rubble from the dilapidated greenhouse – most likely a manifestation of her anxiety surrounding the sudden change of environment. This imaginary figure of hers – because it _is_ just that, a figment of her imagination – seems real to her only because her six-year-old mind is not yet able to separate fact from fiction. Dr Hargreeves knew about these things, about the trickiness of the mind. It was, after all, his business. Luther never knew much about what their father did, what he scribbled about in those _very official-looking_ black notebooks he kept in his office, the office they weren’t allowed into, and that he’d only caught a glimpse of when the maid forgot to close the door while she polished his father’s _official-looking_ mounted certificates. What he did know, with a surety, was that Dr Hargreeves knew what he was talking about.

 

Klaus started with nightmares soon after. The doctor explained that away too – twins, he said, are always fighting for attention. Fighting to be recognised as separate from the other.

 

Luther thought that Klaus’ fear was too real to be acting. Once he was crying so hard, his face red because he couldn’t gulp in enough air, he made himself sick. Luther wasn’t sure that a six-year-old could fake that.

 

He didn’t say it, of course. He was just a kid. Dr Hargreeves knew what he was talking about.

 

“Her again?” Sounded a voice from behind Luther. Grace, illuminated by the ethereal glow of the corridor, stood at the door in her silken robe, her blonde hair pillowed about her face. Without her make-up, she looked younger, and softer, thought Luther, who rarely saw their mother in this dressed-down state. Usually, she’d be wearing dark red lipstick. It made be smile look bigger, but there was something off about it – a too-perfect smile, nobody was that happy. Not even Grace.

 

“Where was she?” She said. Vanya pointed to a spot at the foot of the bed.

 

“Oh dear… Let me take a look.”

 

Grace stepped lightly across the room, in a languid waft of silk. She pretended to search the spot that Vanya had pointed out, crouching, and peering under the bed. Vanya whimpered, and Luther placed his hand over hers. Her small fist unclenched when Grace stood back up, unharmed.

 

“Nothing under there. She was here, huh?” Vanya nodded, yes. Grace placed a hand on one of the bedposts. “Well, if she _was_ , she’s gone now. Why, your big brother must have scared her off – big brothers are good like that.”

 

As she said this, Grace looked at Luther with the warmest smile. He fidgeted with his sleeve, and looked away. He saw her shoulders dip slightly, sadly, in the corner of his eye. _Guilty_ : of course he was. But a little guilt was better than the squirming feeling he got when his mother caught his eye.

 

Vanya was looking up at him too, but her puffy eyes were narrow. Clearly, she wasn’t convinced.

 

“She’s hiding,” she corrected, as Grace moved to sit beside her. She placed a comforting hand on her head – it was ghostly white against Vanya’s shock of dark hair; the contrast was made severe by the night’s monochrome.

 

“I’m sure she’s not coming back tonight, darling. I think,” and she glanced, at Luther, “that we can all go back to bed now.”

 

Luther knew a cue to leave when he was given one. He had always been perceptive around adults, he picked up their silent language. Adults, he learned at a very young age, rarely say what they mean to. _We think you’ll be happier in another home,_ for instance, means; _we don’t want you here, you aren’t what we were looking for._ _You’ll be staying with your friends here a little longer,_ means; _we haven’t found anyone who’ll have you._ He had to make himself unobtrusive, make himself appealing, accommodating, and the opposite of a trouble-maker. Part of that is being able to read a room. Grown-ups like it better when you can tell what they’re thinking – they like _you_ better. He gave Vanya’s hand a good-bye squeeze – she was so dainty that her whole fist fit inside his palm, like the pit in a stone fruit.

 

When he’d passed through the door, however, he felt himself stopping, and waiting; listening.

 

“Do you remember what we talked about, about our dreams?” He heard Grace say.

 

“They can spill,” Klaus piped from across the room. 

 

Grace nodded, a serene bob of her golden head. “That’s right, just like a glass of water. But, you know, the dreams of children are special. They’re like,”

 

 _An ocean_ , thought Luther.

 

And Vanya said, “They’re like an ocean.”

 

“Just like an ocean. And the really big dreams can spill. I know that she’s very scary,” Grace leant in towards Vanya, so that their two heads were almost touching, black and gold. And in that moment, through all their differences, they looked just like a real mother and daughter. Luther felt a pang of jealousy. Out of them all, he was the one who looked most like Grace’s, by blood. They shared the same blonde hair, a similar shaped face and nose. That was ironic. They’d never look close. Never like that.

 

“…But that’s all she is, sweetheart. She’s just a little spill.” Grace placed a kiss on his sister’s forehead, wiped the tears from her flushed cheeks. Vanya sniffed.

 

“Can you try and get some more sleep for me?” Grace said, standing slowly and drawing her robe about her. Vanya nodded, dolefully. “That’s my little girl. Klaus too; and you, Luther – off to bed. Even big brothers need to get enough sleep.”

 

Luther felt the back of his neck burn up under the collar. He’d been noticed, lingering. He nodded hurriedly. He turned to leave, and Grace called from the beside – “Goodnight, honey!”

 

“Goodnight, Grace.” He said.

 

What awkwardness in him stopped him from calling her ‘Mom’, like the others? But the word felt wrong, somehow, ashy, on his tongue, when he tried to force it out. Obtuse, too many angles which just wouldn’t push themselves out of his mouth. Square pegs.

 

He lingered round the corner.

 

“How long do we have to stay here, Mommy?” Said Vanya.

 

“We stay until I finish fixing up the house, and your father finishes his work. Then somebody else is going to move in here.”

 

“And we can go back home?” Said Klaus.

 

There was a silence.

 

Luther didn’t know why they’d so suddenly packed up and moved, none of them did, and he was as curious as the rest. He knew that it was something more than Mom’s job. Something that neither of their parents would betray, except in the unsaid words that blackened the air around the dinner table. He could sense that it was a bruise best left un-prodded. You wouldn’t get answers, if you asked, anyway.

 

The twins were too little to pick up on these things; Allison and Diego too blunt.

 

He didn’t wait to hear Grace’s reply. He walked back along the fleshy carpet, back to his room, pausing momentarily at Allison’s door. Through the wall, he could hear the soft babble of the tinny radio she played at night – the country was too quiet for her, she said. She missed the background noise of the city, car-horns and sirens and the vacuum hum of a passing aeroplane, stitched into the fabric of her sleep. The house was deadly quiet, she said. It sounded both too empty and too full at the same time. Oddly, he knew what she meant. As he passed Diego’s room he could hear the low rumble of his snores. Diego could fall asleep anywhere, and his arms and legs always snuck into strange arrangements, like a climber-plant, as if they became independent from his body at night. He’d be drooling on the pillow, by now. The thought made Luther smirk.

 

He pushed on his own door, with enough force that it swung open and lay bare the whole of the yawning darkness of the Yellow Room. It was a habit he’d developed since they came to the House. Not fear, but a wariness, like the itch when you sense someone standing behind you. Some instinct curling within told him that it was best, in Hill House, not to enter a room blindly. And so he pushed doors open, wide. And he took a deep breath – flicked on the light switch in a jerk – then he went inside.

 

 

_MA, Now_

 

  
“The kitchen has actually just been remodelled – new quartz worktops – and I think that the skylight really opens up the space.”

 

Luther rests a hand on a tabletop that has been polished to resemble a slab of blackest ice. He’s trying his best to maintain a countenance of ease, but that’s easier said than done in a property like this one. Most everything is new, infinitely perishable – and way too expensive for him to be able to cover damages. A chipped coaster might send him into bankruptcy. And all this superfluous glass and obnoxious minimalism makes up a smirk that says, _you can’t afford a place like this._

 

That’s the desired effect. A major selling point.

 

The clients are a Mr and Mrs Nassiopoulos: mid-to-late thirties, sharp-suited. He knows their type: stuffed in cash; paradoxically reluctant to part with it. Their discerning eyes look around the room appreciatively, and Luther breathes a sigh of relief.

 

“It _is_ lovely,” hums Mrs Nassiopoulos.

 

“Yeah… yeah – very nice – no need for redecorating – this is quartz, you said? Not granite?” Says Mr Nassiopoulos, running a sceptical finger along the worktop. He gives it a tap (Luther doesn’t have to look to know that he’s left fingerprints) and plucks one of the glass coasters for inspection. “Quartz is more durable, you see.”

 

“Easier to clean,” his wife nods. Neither of them say ‘less expensive’.

“I can assure you,” says Luther, who has never looked close enough at a kitchen counter to be able to tell the difference, and never bothered to check, “they’re quartz.”

 

He slips his clenched fist behind his back and plasters on a dazzling smile. “Shall we go out back? The landscaping is outstanding.”

 

He is assuring Mr Nassiopoulos that, while perhaps the pool _does_ appear smaller in person, it is _absolutely_ the dimensions advertised on the agency’s webpage – no, he doesn’t have a tape measure on him – when his phone goes off in his pocket.

 

Mrs Nassiopoulos shoots him withering glare from where she’s stood at the water’s edge. The toes of her ankle-breaking heels poke over the rim. She’d been inspecting a hairline crack in the tiling.

 

 _Oh, to hell with you,_ he thinks. He wills her to lose her balance; just a little, a wobble, and go splashing into the deep end.

 

_Please, please, make my day…_

 

…But, really, he isn’t supposed to take personal calls when he’s with the clients. He prays that this is something important – anything – he’d take a beat-down from his boss over Mr Nassiopoulos’ horticultural inquisition.

He reads the name on the screen. Then, blinking, he reads it again.

 

It’s _Vanya_ , he thinks to himself, dumbly.

 

Vanya; from whom calls are rare and typically nonsensical – what else could be expected, from his less-than-stable sister?

 

He drowns the instinctive pang of guilt, and he presses the ‘decline’ button.

 

“Sorry about that.”

 

He straps on his smile and points it at Mrs Nassiopoulos. Her clothes are, regrettably, dry. Her husband is still busy at the edge of the property, testing the fence with his shoe.

 

“Nothing important, I hope? It’s alright, really, if there’s an emergency to attend to,” she says, but her slight frown suggests otherwise. Perhaps she’d be scowling if her facial muscles had the dexterity – but the firm line between her arched brows is the only mark of an expression.

“No,” he assures her. “Nothing important. Shall we move the tour upstairs?”

 

-

 

Miles away, Vanya is frowning at the screen. She watches her third attempt at contact go to voicemail, and feels herself sink a little deeper into the panic lapping at her waist.

 

Luther had been the back-up – the dependable – she runs a shaky hand through her unwashed hair, and regresses into that childhood habit of thumbnail biting. A nervous habit; and she has a right to be. Her rapidly receding options spiral before her. Of course she’d tried Klaus first. But she’d expected silence on that front. He never checks his phone. And then Diego; the shaky upheaval to adulthood has left their relationship on unsteady footing, but he can usually be relied on in a crisis. He must be working, a case requiring his full attention, she thought, when the dial tone rang on, mockingly, repercussive in her hollow living space. Then crueller still – _of course he doesn’t have time for another one of your silly meltdowns_ – but she bit that one back in a flare of defiance instilled from months of group therapy. She’d pushed down that rising giggle of hysterical fear, floating up like the rush of bubbles in a shaken soda-can.

 

She feels like that, more so now her options are narrowing before her, like the slightest nudge could push her into overflow.

 

She rubs the back of her neck, which is saturated in a thin film of sweat. It isn’t from the heat, though the forecast she’d turned on moments ago for some mindless, comforting background noise tells her that it’s hot out. It can’t be that, because Vanya feels no warmth, only the chill of her bare feet on the floorboards, and an unnatural, groping, invasive cold seeping through her sweatpants and t-shirt.

 

This is sickly sweat, the damp of clammy hands, the sweat of nightmares.

 

 _Pills_ , she thinks, abstractedly, and then sharply, like a lens coming into focus. _I need to take my pills._

 

_I need to get a hold of myself._

 

And, admitting that long-shot, she says to herself, again: _I need to take my pills._

 

The details of the dream have evaded her, but the gut-twisting sense of terror, grief, and more than these things, potent, imminent danger: they linger. Exactly _what_ had wrenched her from sleep – she has no idea – she never does - but since waking, and pacing the apartment with trembling legs, three clear truths have solidified in the haze of breathless anxiety.

 

First: they are in danger – the five of them, but particularly, she feels, Klaus; whose name had been on her lips in that first waking gasp. Yes, she’s so sure of that; that her brother is wading headlong into some great peril, and following him, them all. A blind delve into a railway tunnel, anticipating the impact of an oncoming train.

 

Second: something to do with their father is coming up ahead, close enough that, on a better day, she might be able to reach out and grasp it. No such luck now, she’s too shaken, and the lines are crossed. They haven’t been straight for a while. Not since…

 

_No. Don’t make it worse. Don’t think of him today._

 

From the little she can gather, she figures that its going to be important, somehow. This something will be the drop that distills the water, and the cataclysmic ripples that follow are going to rock them all.

 

And finally – the most chilling of all, the thought of which makes her so sickeningly winded, like a sucker-punch to the stomach, that she has to stop and get her breath back -

 

She dreamt of Hill House.

 

That monstrosity of cold brick and stone, so long dormant in the recesses of her mind – it’s about to rear its ugly head. _They are an undigested meal, and Hill House is coming back to finish the job._

 

She shudders violently and slams the door shut. _God_ , she has a real way with words, coming up with that macabre bullshit. She scolds herself as she yanks on the adjacent handle – _a-ha_ – victory – the familiar evasive pill bottle grins at her from the bottom shelf. In a flinch, she uncaps, swallows a pill dry, replaces the bottle in the exact spot she is sure to forget tomorrow. She knows that her medication takes longer to get kicking, but she still feels an instant whisper of calm, just from taking it. The dread melts away, just a little.

 

Vanya takes a few moments to savour the feeling. Leaning against the kitchen worktop, she takes some of those deep grounding breaths Dr Cho has her committing to memory.

 

Once she can no longer feel her heartbeat throbbing in her neck, Vanya opens her eyes.

 

Forgotten, but only momentarily, her cell comes into her line of vision.

 

She sighs, letting her head fall back until it hits the cupboard with a forlorn ‘thump!’.

 

“Well,” she says aloud, to no one in particular, “fourth time’s a charm, I guess.”

 

Opening up the contacts, she selects ‘Allison’.

 

-

 

He winds up in his local. It isn’t exactly glamorous, but it _is_ inconspicuous. Besides, if he sees another brass pendant light he may just vomit. The thirty-year-old tacky beer rings on the bar are as far from chic as you could ever aim to be. It’s almost comforting. It was also a choice of convenience. He can already feel sales-induced fatigue taking its hold, and home is only a few blocks away – the added bonus, is that, here, there is little-to-no chance of colliding with insufferable work colleagues.

 

The barmaid gives him his second beer with a smile that strikes him as not-so-completely-innocent. She’s new. He hasn’t seen her in here before, and he’s quite obviously unfamiliar to _her_. Her eyes drag lingeringly over his rolled up sleeves, loosened tie and open collar. Conscious, he fixes his attention on the game broadcasted from the bar’s single, spluttering television set. She must catch the hint. His peripheral snags her frown while she’s turning to pick up empties.

 

Around half-time, the drowsy atmosphere suddenly swells, as a large group bundles in from outside. From their general rowdiness, they’re already wasted – bar-hopping, and just in time for round two. He wonders briefly how they could let themselves fall into such a state on a weeknight. Then he remembers that it’s a Friday.

 

 _When did he stop celebrating the end of the working week?_ When getting through the day alone was enough of a challenge, he supposes.

 

He finds himself longing, achingly, for the silence of his own apartment. Why is he here again?

 

He isn’t old. These guys are probably around his age. That’s what _normal_ people do with their lives, he thinks. They go out. They exist outside of jobs they hate and people they’d rather not talk to. They don’t brush off their friends. There’s a part of him that wants to be like them.

 

A stronger part of him just wants sink into the familiar recess of his couch – a shower, and a change of clothes – and that’s the part he listens to. He settles with the barmaid. She isn’t as friendly as she was before. Something else he could’ve pursued, and another way in which he’s fallen short. He’s glad to get out in the end.

 

 

The cool of the evening air is a welcome sensation. He dawdles for a moment to enjoy the freedom from the close, tacky air of the bar, and feels a buzzing in his trouser pocket.

 

 _Shit_. He’d completely forgotten: _Vanya_. He thinks, levelly, _I should answer this, it could be an emergency this time._ And yet, for some reason, he still finds himself hesitating to pull out the phone. When a pang of guilt pushes him to pick up, he’s relieved – inexplicably, undeniably _relieved_ – to read that it’s Allison on the end of the line. He accepts immediately.

 

“Hey!” he breathes, perhaps a little too eagerly, because there’s a light, surprised chuckle on the other end.

 

“Hey yourself – someone’s feeling chipper this evening.”

 

“I am?”

 

“Sounds that way.” Another warm, gentle laugh.

 

“Yeah, I guess I am.” He pauses for a moment, letting his grin warm him in the brisk night air. “I got a sale on the Martin house today,” he says, and there’s a happy little flutter; either hesitant pride or the alcohol just starting to ease its sway over his body.

 

“That’s the one you’ve been trying to bag for a while now, right?” He sounds the affirmative. “That’s really great, Luther,” she says.

 

She sounds in earnest, but there’s something off about her tone. It’s as if she’s distracted. Their mother sounded just like that, when her mind was on something, and she’d rather not answer Klaus’ queries (do goldfish sleep with their eyes open?) – or break up another fight – (always involving Diego.) Does she use it on Claire, he wonders?

 

“Everything okay with you?” he says tentatively. “Is Claire alright?”

 

An afterthought, like a gnat: “…and Patrick?” He adds.

 

Allison hums. From her end he can hear ghostly clinks and splashes. Then, the unmistakable tenor of a child’s voice, words indistinguishable. The scene he pictures, his sister doing dishes with the phone snagged between head and shoulder; his niece, the image of her mother at that age; it makes him smile.

 

“I’m fine – we’re all doing just fine – Claire’s here, actually. She says hi.”

 

“Tell her I said hello,” he says, and his words are echoed by Allison.

 

“So… are you calling for a reason, or - ?” He corrects himself, “Not, that you need one – it’s great to hear from you, but…”

 

There’s a pause on her side.

 

“It’s probably nothing. In fact, I’m overthinking it, I’m sure…” says Allison.

 

He waits, saying nothing. Then,

 

“Did you hear from Vanya today? You know what – Claire, why don’t you go and do your homework? …What, all of it? Are you sure? …Well then, why don’t you go watch TV with Daddy?” Luther hears the scrape of a chair, and the patter of footsteps leaving the room.

 

“Vanya called me today,” Allison repeats. “Did she call you?”

 

“She called me, but… well I was working so I couldn’t answer. To be honest, I haven’t called her back yet. Why, is there something wrong?”

 

“I don’t know. She sounded upset about something – just, on edge.”

 

“Oh. Is that all?”

 

“ _Luther_.”

 

“Come on, you know what I mean. It’s Vanya. When is she not ‘on edge’?”

 

“I know, I know – I just…” Allison sighed. “She was spiralling so I didn’t catch all of it, but she was talking about dad. And she’s worried about Klaus.” That’s nothing new either, thinks Luther. Vanya’s the only one left who still puts up with his shit. There’s no wonder she’s a nervous wreck, letting herself get dragged along in the maelstrom of chaos that surrounds their brother. “Have you heard from him recently?” Allison asks, and Luther scoffs.

 

He refuses to dignify that with an answer.

 

“Yeah, me neither. But Diego got in touch a few months back, and he seemed fine. He’d actually gotten his 30 day chip, if you can believe that. It was a while back, but I can’t think what could’ve gotten her so rattled if he’s doing well?”

 

“Maybe he’s relapsed. Gone missing again.”

 

“Maybe… I just – wouldn’t she know? You know she speaks to him more than we do. And we’re still down as his emergency contacts, surely the centre would contact us if -? … _Ugh_ – I don’t know. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just paranoid. I’m really struggling with the end of this book, maybe I’m going a little stir-crazy. There was just… something about the way she sounded on the phone…”

 

Allison goes quiet.

 

“She frightened me, Luther.”

-

 

 

_Hill House, The Night It Happened_

 

 

  
“You’re scaring me,” he said.

 

He watched helplessly as his father pressed his ear up against the door. He’d burst into his room in some mad frenzy, dragged him out of bed while he was still blurry-eyed and muggy from sleep. Luther had no idea what time it was. His father was mumbling something under his breath.

 

“Dad, what is it?” He said again. The rising panic had made its way into his voice. “Dad, _please_ -”

 

“ _Shh_!” His father whirled around and grabbed him by the arm, tight – tight enough to _hurt_ , and in the sickly grey wash of the yellow room his father’s eyes stood out in a bright, hyperborean blue. There was a glint in them he’d never seen before, a steel edge.

 

 _Fear_ , he realised slowly. His father, for the first time in his life, was visibly, unshakeably afraid.

 

And then the terrible noise came.

 

Quietly, at first – but, he noticed, as his father reached out to turn the key in the lock, getting louder. And, rooted in place, he saw the tremors rattling the pictures on his nightstand. He saw the taut wires of his model aeroplanes twang as though plucked. And he realised, with a sharp shiver along his spine, and a moment of breathless fear –

 

Not louder. _Closer_.

 

The noise was getting closer. Closer – closer – closer – as if it were hurtling down the corridors, picking up speed. It – whatever it was – beating against the doors in an erratic rhythm.

 

Luther looked to his father for guidance, but he looked… frightening. He looked wild – stood poised at the door like that – and on the cuff of his sleeve, was that…?

 

A bang like a gunshot, louder, and _oh god, so close_ ; a bang that could only be the ricochet of doors beaten out of the wall.

 

His brothers and sisters, thought Luther, and his tongue felt heavy in his mouth. _They sleep on this floor. Their doors are not locked._

 

He barely had time to process this thought, because the noise had at last reached them – it rattled the door on its hinges, matching Luther’s heart stride for stride – and the whole wall was pounding, a snow of dust falling from above – it was so loud, he couldn’t bare it – and then,

 

It stopped. Then, a tap-tapping, hesitant: Luther followed the sounds right around the door frame. It was almost… _what?_ Almost curious… almost like a child. Like a child feeling its way around in the dark. _No_ – it didn’t sound lost. It sounded _playful_ , like it was toying with them.

 

This stopped too, and Luther watched, electric fear alighting in his arms and legs, as the doorknob started, ever-so-slowly, to twist. It clicked one way. It clicked the other. It was still.

 

He and his father were motionless for moments spanning eternities. It was only when the doctor turned and regarded him with a manic, determined look that Luther expelled the breath he never realised he’d been holding. His father unlocked the door, flinching at the click of the tumbler. He opened it, carefully, and peered into the dark corridor. The bead of sweat that had been gathering at the nape of Luther’s neck slipped, at last, under his shirt collar and down the arch of his back. It was clear: the doctor whispered with a hand still on the door.

 

“We have to run. You are going to keep your eyes closed until we get to the stairs. I cannot carry you.”

 

His words were sharp; punctuated bullets. There was only one appropriate response.

 

“Yes, Sir.” Luther remembered the doors to the other rooms. He swallowed thickly. “The others,”

 

“Already in the car. There’s no time – it must be now – are your eyes closed? Good. I’ll lead you. Whatever you hear, you will keep them closed. Understand?”

 

“Y-yes.”

 

“On my mark, then,” The door creaked as he pushed it open. His father wrapped a hand, bruisingly, around Luther’s forearm.

 

“Now!”

 

And Luther _ran_.

 

Half by memory and half by his father’s lead; his steps were clumsy, and twice, stumbling, he had to be torn back onto his feet by the doctor, who set an unshakeable pace.

 

He lost count of how many obstacles he collided with – from the sound of that crash, he’d just shattered one of Grace’s ornamental vases, slamming his shin into a side table leg. The shock of pain near winded him. They didn’t stop.

 

The thumping of their feet, his father’s solid shoes, and the pounding of his heart; it all made such a confusion of sound, that he took a while to register the extra pair of footsteps following them.

 

_Don’t look back don’t look back don’t look back._

 

The steps were feral – galloping – he could only picture their pursuer as hulking, limping, a shapeless and savage form. _Eyes closed, eyes closed, eyes closed._

 

“Stairs!” Shouted his father. Luther’s eyes flew open and he saw the door, wide flung into black night beyond. They scrambled down the stairs. Behind, It had just rounded the corner. Its footfalls echoed as it left the hallway’s running carpet for hardwood.

 

He didn’t look back.

 

They broke out into the night and his father slammed the front doors and he didn’t look back.

 

The car was running. Four bone white faces stared at him in dazed distress – three from inside, one,

 

“Klaus! Get back into the car!” Said their father, his voice climbing to hysterical.

 

“I saw Ben in the upstairs window.”

 

Luther hoisted his little brother back inside and fastened his seatbelt. His hands were shaking. It took him three tries to connect the belt buckle. He couldn’t feel his fingers.

 

“He was in the window,” Klaus said again, with grim sincerity, just to Luther.

 

Luther climbed in beside a trembling Allison. The scene inside was of chaotic stillness, the close air of the Ford throbbed with palpable terror, voiceless confusion, and Luther took an instinctive body count. The noise, halfway between sobbing and wailing, was Vanya – the rest of them too shell-shocked to comfort her. Beside him, Allison was shaking violently, and kept opening her mouth as if to say something only to close it again. Diego, catatonic, stared unblinkingly at the seat in front, hair still sticking up at angles, comic, if his face weren’t so pallid with shock; Klaus continued to fret in the back.

 

Up front, Dr Hargreeves kept a white knuckled grip on the steering wheel. The passenger seat was empty.

 

Luther frowned. His thoughts felt slow, thick, just like his arms and legs which were weighted as in a dream, or a nightmare. They were leaving Hill House, in the dead of night. He wasn’t dreaming: he bit his lip to confirm it; the pinpricks of blood tasted real enough.

 

The passenger seat was empty. And wasn’t that strange?

 

“Dad. Where’s Grace? W-Where’s Mom?”

 

Their father said nothing. One clenched hand twitched at the wheel.

 

“Dad! Where is she? Where’s Mom?” The numbness was starting to leave his body; now, he felt like he could burst into tears. His eyes prickled and his throat stung and he was just barely aware that his voice was climbing into a scream.

 

“ _Dad!_ We _can’t_ leave Mom! We have to go _back_ – we have to turn around! _We have to go back for Mom!_ ” Diego stirred on his far right.

 

“Mom…” he mumbled. “Where’s _Mom_ …?”

 

“What’s happening? Someone please tell me what’s happening…” said Allison, her voice cracking.

 

“He was in the window!” Klaus was saying, still. No one was listening.

  
The doctor, hearing nothing, kept his eyes on the windscreen. His face, which his children could not see from behind, would have been unrecognisable to them. Fresh rain lashed the glass, and the yellow eye of the headlights lurched at the dark, grey road ahead.

 

 


	2. Luther Sees a Ghost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Diego enjoys the precinct filing system, Klaus makes like The Jam and goes underground, and Luther has a visitor.

 

**_Allison Hargreeves on the Carrie Vance Show – Interview Transcript_ **

 

_Carrie: First, let me just say: the book is extraordinary._

 

_[Audience: claps, cheers]_

 

_Allison: Thank you._

 

_Carrie: You landed it. I mean, it really – wow. Coming from what was – obviously a very traumatic event, a very difficult childhood – and out of that… the book is tender, it’s_ _raw, it is so compelling._

 

_Allison: That – That really means a lot, thank you. Yeah, it wasn’t easy to write… it was probably one of the most difficult things I’ve done… but it felt like something I needed to do. There were a lot of things about – about what happened that night, that didn’t make sense to me then and still don’t. So I think that actually writing it, coming from a time in my life where I can see it all in retrospect, has really allowed me to reflect on what happened; what we saw._

 

_Carrie: [nodding] And of course, you were just children when it happened. I imagine that you didn’t have much input on the media storm that first time –_

 

_Allison: No, that’s exactly right. Our father really did his best to shield us from that side of things. It still messes with your head at that age; seeing your face plastered on newspapers, in magazines, being part of such a huge, well, a scandal. That’s what it was. They all thought our father was a lunatic._

 

_Carrie: You’ve actually just touched on something that I wanted to discuss today -_

 

_Allison: Sure._

 

_Carrie: - you talk about, in the book, a lot about how the – scandal, you put it – affected you coming into adulthood. You touch on this a little bit in the novel, but I wanted to ask you about your brothers and sister. Naturally you’ve all responded differently, adapted differently…_

 

_Allison: Yeah. We were all affected by it._

 

_Carrie: I’m thinking about the twins; they were so very young when it happened. They couldn’t have been older than seven, eight…?_

 

_Allison: Six. They were six at the time._

 

_Carrie: So young. It must have been difficult for them. They couldn’t have known what they were seeing…_

 

_Allison: No, but then, none of us did. There was so much that happened to us as kids that just… defies explanation._

 

_Carrie: Are you referring to – I don’t really know how to put this, ah – the ‘supernatural entities’ that your father blamed for the tragedy?_

 

_Allison: [laughing] You can say ghosts. [scattered laughter from the audience] We all know where the ‘Haunted Hargreeves’ moniker came from… But, to answer your question…The short answer is that I don’t believe in spirits. I think that the mind is, paradoxically, incredibly powerful but extremely fragile. A childhood like ours; it’s no wonder that we conjured up these fantasies, when you think about it._

 

_Carrie: So you don’t believe that the twins could – can, I should say – see the dead?_

 

_Allison: No._

 

_Carrie: Do you think that, on some level, they were vying for attention?_

 

_Allison: No, not exactly. I wouldn’t put it like that. [pauses, seems conflicted] The thing about my brother and sister, is that they’re both emotionally vulnerable individuals. They’ve always been that way. They both suffer from mental illness. My brother is a professionally diagnosed schizophrenic. Our father invested so much in his treatment, but he’s almost acted as if he doesn’t want to get better. Hence, and I discuss it in more depth in the book – but his problems with substance abuse. I mean, that can’t help, right? And my sister suffers from anxiety – and we’re talking about crippling anxiety. Just…awful. [Vance hums in pity.] So, I suppose what I’m trying to say is that they have always been haunted. Just not in the literal sense._

 

_Carrie: [nodding] Are you still close with your older brother, with Luther? One thing I did notice, is that he always seems to act as the voice of reason in the book. Is that true to life?_

 

_Allison: We’re still close. We’ve all drifted apart a little – I mean, that’s what happens when you grow up. You become your own people. And once you take away the things that you have in common as children… But Luther and I are very close; I think it’s an age thing. He’s the oldest of us all, so yeah, I guess you could say he’s the voice of reason._

 

_Carrie: What was Luther’s stance on the supernatural? Did he have any experiences, in the House?_

 

_Allison: [laughs] I’ll put it this way. If you asked Luther? He’d say, definitively – there’s no such thing as ghosts._

 

 

**PART TWO**

**LUTHER SEES A GHOST**

 

 

  
Eudora Patch looks so implausibly sexy in her officer’s uniform that Diego is almost heartbroken to hear she’s made detective.

 

But then she saunters past his desk, in the guise of dropping off a stack of paperwork. Her hand lingers on the manila folder for just a little too long, and when he looks up, she’s flashing the grin she reserves just for Diego. Her nemesis-turned-begruding-sidekick-turned-ad-hoc-lover.

 

He flips open the folder, peels away the post-it tacked to the first page. In Eudora’s messy cursive: _File in evidence locker. URGENT._

 

‘Urgent’ is underlined three times.

 

 _Fuck yeah,_ he thinks. This is so worth letting his first cup of coffee go cold. He gives it one last swig – tries to ignore the thumbs-up knowing-smirk that Macpherson shoots him from across the bullpen, (because Jesus, does everyone know?)

 

He gives it a few minutes before trailing after her. He has to keep up appearances. Likes to make her wait for him, so she doesn’t think she’s got him on a leash. Her ego doesn’t need more stoking.

 

He’s still trying to reconcile the devastating news. He settles on the admission that  _well, she still looks killer in a pantsuit._

 

Needless to say, grievances are soon pushed aside – around the same time that Diego is pushed roughly against the evidence locker’s aluminium shelves.

 

He hisses, more from the crash of the flimsy metal (definitely audible through the station’s thin walls) than out of pain – but she ignores it. She’s still grinning, her dark eyes sparking feline joy.

 

Practically purring, when she says, “Said I’d beat ya to it, Hargreeves,”

 

Normally he’d respond to that with some clever, scathing quip. Sexually fuelled, searing banter, that’s their M.O. Except, as she has his arms pinned up over his head like he’s a fucking _perp_ , his melted brain feels like it’s dripping out of his ear. With Patch’s tiny figure pressed up against him like this, he isn’t exactly in the ambit for functional brain activity.

 

(Logic prevailing, he’d be able to toss Patch around as if she were sugar-spun; only after getting his ass handed to him in training – twice, publicly – did he finally come to appreciate her deceptive strength.)

 

She’s so close, all right-angles and tilt of the jaw, and he only has one coherent thought. Not a new revelation, shouldn’t come as a shock, but it does.

 

Because, _Christ_ , _he’s in love with her._

 

Vocally, that translates into a high-voiced whine. He’s mortified.

 

It seems to amuse her.

 

“What, got nothing to say, tough guy?”

 

She nips at his throat.

 

“I outrank you now… Does it bother you?”

 

She moves along, mouthing, maddening, marking a scorching trail along the cut of his jawline. He squirms and curses the sharp bite of the shelving unit, stopping him from sinking into her touch like he wants, like he needs. Warm breath brushes the shell of his ear when she stretches up to whisper.

 

“I’ll be moving upstairs with the big-shots – getting my own desk – come on, Hargreeves, I want to hear how jealous you are…”

 

And he would have been, back when they were fresh. Graduates, green; hungry to get off the beat and into the big leagues. That’s what everyone’s here for, there’s no denying it. You don’t dream about crawling through precinct streets in a sweaty cop-car on eternal patrol. It’s the real police work, the grit and grime; that’s what they’re all drooling over. The yearning to sully your hands saving lives, God, it hangs over the heads of the new recruits in neon-fucking-lights.

 

Diego has never seen any shine brighter than the one that hangs over Patch’s head – he’s never seen anyone so ravenous.

 

Once upon a time he hated that about her. He was young and, being honest, an arrogant son of a bitch; Patch was a stickler for the rules who isolated herself from her classmates. They shared a similarly obnoxious ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude, and so, naturally, they didn’t get along.

 

Now, her work ethic is one of her most endearing traits. Falling just short of the stuffed bunny she keeps on her bed: the one she forgot to stuff into a bedside drawer before he came into the room, then made him swear to keep secret (‘pain of death, asshole – stop laughing!’)

 

He’s seen her sweat and bleed over this. He’s been beside her, seen the view from the top of the class; seen what the recognition does to Eudora’s face – how she shines light with every word of praise. They’ve sparred; he was always a better punching bag than a shoulder to cry on, and he would gladly stand in for their jackass instructors when she needed to vent her frustration. He’s seen her fight harder than anyone, and now she’s made it.

 

It isn’t the sharp sting of jealousy that he feels. It’s _pride_.

 

He’s ridiculously happy for her.

 

There’s a ballooning feeling in his chest, a dizziness – maybe that’s blood-loss from the head, since being in such close proximity to Eudora sends it rushing to… _other places._ Whatever the cause, he’s not feeling in control of himself. His whole body is a goofy smile. His mind is a golden retriever chasing it’s own tail around the cavity of his skull. He’ll do something reckless while he’s like this; his impulse control is swirling down the drain even as he watches her speak.

 

She’s leaving the office soon. Now or never.

 

“Eudora,” he begins, just as she releases his arms to wind hers around his neck.

 

“Hm?” She hums, planting a sweet kiss on his Adam’s apple.

 

He gulps. The voice in the back of his head is trying to recall the puppy from the yard – _Woah, boy! Bad idea! Retreat!_ We need an escape plan, say something dumb that’ll make her laugh and call you an idiot. Is that your gun digging into my leg, or are you just glad to see me, Patch?

 

“B-be my girlfriend.”

 

She falters.

 

And Christ, you’ve done it now, says the voice. Don’t say I never warned you.

 

“We talked about this, Diego,” she says, quietly, not without warmth. “We both agreed – you and I – we wouldn’t work.”

 

“Right,” he says. He pushes himself onto his feet, lifting his shoulder from the cut of the shelf that’s starting to sting. Eudora takes a step backwards to give them both some breathing space. The dizzying need for intimacy has, a little pathetically, been deflated. Though he registers dimly that she keeps an amiable hand on his bicep.

 

“Hypothetically,” he says, “we wouldn’t work. But we don’t know that for sure unless we give it a shot, right? Nothing ventured nothing gained, etcetera…”

 

She shakes her head, furrowed brows and sad smile. There’s something like regret in her lingering look. Maybe he imagines that.

 

“I just don’t know if it’s a good idea.”

 

“Okay, and I hear you, but things aren’t the same between us as when we decided to cut the romance. Remember how we always said it’d be awkward around the office if we split? Now you’re upstairs – won’t be an issue.”

 

She sighs. But she’s smiling. He pushes.

 

“What we have now is great – believe me, I don’t wanna ruin it either. But do you honestly think we can keep up all this…covert shit when we’re in different departments? You’re gonna run out of excuses to disappear pretty quickly… you can only go through so many boxes of staplers.”

 

She recoils, tense, and Diego panics. He reaches out to touch her cheek, but he recoils when he notices his own hands. His skin is stark, bare where he expected it to be covered up. The bones of his hand, knuckles and ridges, look almost alien. Did he forget his gloves? It isn’t often he does that… He redirects at the last second and takes her gently by the elbow, where her arm is covered by the sleeve of her uniform. If she notices his slight, she doesn’t say anything. But then, she wouldn’t. They covered _that_ minefield of a conversation a long time ago.

 

“…Just – consider the perks of being my girlfriend - ” he says.

 

Patch smirks. She rests one arm against an unmarked box, eyebrow raised, clearly amused. “Which are…?”

 

“Uh…” He screws up his eyebrows, thinking hard. He hadn’t banked on the conversation getting far enough for him to actually have to convince her. “The old man’ll finally get off your back about still being single,” he says, taking a wild stab at a conversation he’d had with her about her dad’s attempts to hook her up with his dentists’ cousin’s secretary, or something. “And you don’t have to worry about getting his approval – he’s met me, and he hates me – so that bandaid’s been ripped off.”

 

She’s laughing then.

 

 _This is working,_ he thinks. _Jesus, this is… actually working._

 

_Is he crazy or is this working?_

 

“Pro number two: this hot piece of ass,” he wiggles his hips slightly, and she snorts – shoves him.

 

Before she pulls away, he gently catches her forearm, and closes the space between them until they’re standing toe-to-toe. It’s a soft moment, a whisper of tenderness. Or, would be, if Diego could stop the impish grin spreading over his face as he congratulates himself on being such a smooth mother-fucker.

 

“That’s a direct quote from you, by the way.”

 

“I have never, not once, referred to you as a ‘hot piece of ass’.”

 

“You so did.”

 

“No. I didn’t. Nu-uh.”

 

“Yuh-huh. Christmas drinks at McNeal’s? Granted, you were drunk as a skunk, but you know it brings out honesty in you.” He laughs as she punches him in the arm. “Anyway, as I was saying – this hot piece of ass would be officially off-limits. All yours, exclusive access pass.”

 

“Lucky me.” She deadpans.

 

“You know it, baby.”

 

Leaning forward, he closes the gap between them. As they kiss, his hands come to rest on the small of her back. That perfect, bow-string arch; he can picture it beneath the uniform, artfully dotted in cute moles and freckles. He could make a map of them from memory, just has the remember the path he’s so often traced with the feather-light touch of a gloved hand. He uses the purchase to pull her flush against him and she gasps because she didn’t expect it – it’s always a victory so sweet, drawing that sound from Eudora’s mouth. She’s so hard to catch unaware; always two steps ahead of everyone and what feels like a mile ahead of Diego.

 

He meets her mewl of surprise with a throaty hum. His eyes are fluttering, pure delight at being able to be close without the crushing fear of touch, and he trails his broad palms south over her petite hips. She leans into the touch, wordless encouragement, and he welcomes the green light: Patch is always saying how much she loves him when he’s proactive – it’s praise that applies equally to filing arrest reports unprompted and taking the initiative in the bedroom – and so he moves to smooth his hands over her perfect, perky –

 

Eudora rips his hands away and tears their mouths apart. In the process it seems she takes half his bottom lip with her, and it’s Diego’s turn to yelp.

 

“Fucking ow.”

 

“What’s pro number three?” There’s no trace of remorse when she licks her lips. “You only got to number two. What, did you think that was enough to convince me?”

 

“…Obviously not,” he says, pulling her back to him, so needy already and wondering how he’s going to cope for the rest of the day without being able to wind his arms around her, never mind once she’s gone. “Pro number three is that, as well as the awesome, mind-blowingly good time I show you already,” Her pulse quivers where his mouth brushes her neck.

 

She shudders, and with the slightest tremble in her voice she says, “You give yourself too much credit. I’ve had better.”  
“Liar,” he murmurs against the warm skin of her throat, smirking wolfishly.

 

She sighs softly. He lets his eyes drift closed where she can’t see his face, just enjoying the comfortable contact. And if he catches a whiff of her shampoo while he’s there then sue him. Not overly perfumed or sharp with chemically manufactured scent, just simple, clean, and wholly, Patch. So much stronger in person than the trace left on his pillow when she’s gone.

 

Not that he actively sniffs his pillow for a hint of her shampoo.

 

He just, appreciates it while he’s lying there.

 

…Okay, maybe once – twice, tops – he’s sought it out.

 

He’s lovesick, cut him some slack.

 

“As well as that,” he continues. “I get to take you out. You know I’d treat you right if you were my girl. All the corny couple shit, the whole nine yards, I’m talking fancy dinners, ice-skating at Christmas, making everyone violently uncomfortable with gross displays of public affection…”

 

Laughing, she pulls away from him. “Really? I didn’t think you’d go in for that sort of thing.”

 

What he means to say is, _only if it’s with you._

 

Instantly, he’s thinking about the other morning, breaking ground rules; Patch stayed the night. His heart had twisted when she came padding barefoot out of the bedroom in one of his old shirts and pair of boxers. He made eggs and snuck glances at her cute determined scowl as she laboured over the crossword.

 

Yes, Patch does the daily crossword. As if she could be any more of a lovable dork. Turns out she isn’t all that good at it. Other discoveries included her breakfast drink of choice, orange juice – no pulp, ‘cos then she can’t drink it.

 

He want to learn everything there is to know about her. All the minutiae that come swimming together to make up Patch. He’s enamoured with every little piece.

 

“Yeah, well, I may look like a hardened killing machine on the outside, but I have a soft, gooey centre.”

 

She wrinkles her nose at his analogy of choice. Maybe not his best, he’ll admit. He’s always been better at action than words. To prove it, he leans in for another kiss. Before he can land it, though, his phone sounds obnoxiously from his pocket. He groans – whoever invented the mute button should be heralded as the vanquisher of untimely cock-blocks – and he pulls it out to turn it off and toss it aside, but pauses.

 

“Who is it?” Says Patch. The blue tinted glow from the screen bounces off her face, and his, ricocheted in the dark room.

 

“My sister,” he says, blinking.

 

“Allison?”

 

She remembers that name from a beer-fuelled emotional outpouring, no doubt. It isn’t often he gets in that way, but when he does, his traitorous sibling is more often than not the topic of choice. But it isn’t Allison.

 

“Vanya,” he says. Furrowing brow, he blinks again. The name is still solid against the screen, there’s no brushing it away.

 

“Everything okay, you think?” Says Patch, and a gentle hand on his shoulder brings him back to his senses.

 

“Sure it’s fine,” he says, as he presses the decline button. He plays nonchalance. Hopefully his nerves aren’t conspicuous. Phone-calls from Vanya send his stomach churning. They’re never good news. And after last time – if it’s _that_ again –

 

He pushes the unwelcome memory back in it’s box, the one with the heavy-duty lid, chained and bolted.

 

“She’ll call back if its important,” he says, more to himself, and prays that she doesn’t. There’s a loud clatter as he tosses it to one of the shelves so that it’s out of sight. He can only give them so much of his energy before he starts to lose part of himself. It’s a tough lesson but he’s starting to grasp it.

 

“Where were we?” He says to Patch. It’s supposed to sound sultry but his faltering voice makes him sound genuinely lost. Eudora strokes his arm. Concern flashes briefly over her features, but it fades.

 

When she speaks her tone takes on a playful lilt, like she’s trying to pick up the mood, and he loves her for it. She knows he’ll talk later, if he needs it, if he wants it. She knows he needs light-and-breezy, right now. So she smiles.

 

“You were telling me about how well you’d treat your hypothetical girlfriend…”

 

She looks down at the floor, then locks back on him. Those clever eyes are soft, but uncharacteristically hesitant. Is she…blushing? It looks good on her. Cute.

 

He makes a mental note to tease her about that later.

 

Not now – now she’s about to say something. She’s twisting the ring on her pinky finger. It’s a nervous tick she has.

 

Diego feels his pulse pick up.

 

“And,” she continues. “I was about to suggest…if you’re free after work tonight…that we go have dinner someplace.”

 

He loses the ability to move his tongue.

 

“Uh…huh?”

 

“It’s a dummy-run sorta thing, you understand,” she adds hastily. “Doesn’t mean I’m saying yes, just, maybe we could try it before we commit to anything? No pressure. What do you think?”

 

Diego swallows the wad of saliva building up in his throat. He’s desperately racking his brains for something witty and devilishly romantic.

 

_Okay. Something charming, at least._

 

_Just a response. Any response._

 

_Words would be preferable._

 

_Nod. Nod, you idiot._

 

_Does she know morse code? Is one blink yes, two blinks no universal?_

 

He coughs.

 

“…You want, like, a free trial?”

 

Eudora glances at the floor, chewing the inside of her cheek. She actually looks abashed. That’s a new one for the Patch Expressions file; he tucks it in beside ‘ _Beeman Used the Last of the Milk and Now I Have to Drink Black Coffee’._

 

“You could make it sound less shallow, but…yeah.”

 

“No – that’s not what I…just – forget it. Sorry, that was dumb. I actually think a trial run is a good idea.”

 

It’s not what he hoped for, but it’s better than he expected – and just for that, he’s struck speechless.

 

He clears his throat. His face feels hot, suddenly.

 

“…I’ll pick you up, then. Tonight. After work. Anywhere you had in mind?”

 

She flashes him a smile.

 

“Surprise me, tough guy.”

 

His heart is soaring. If only he’d remembered to put his gloves on this morning… he longs to reach up and cup the side of her face. Strong, but still sorta dainty; it’d fit snuggly into the palm of his hand. That’s the kind of tender touch he’s aways yearning to give her, literally aching, because stealing glances across the precinct floor just doesn’t cut it. Before now he’d hesitated because he half expected her to break his thumb for pushing his luck. That’s a ground rule: nothing sappy.

 

Maybe it’ll change. Baby steps.

 

“And, um, if it all goes well,” she says, batting her eyelashes, half-joking, but it’s still the very image of sultry mock-innocence. She reaches up to button his collar and lowers her voice. It’s an act, nobody can hear them in here. God, it’s hot. “Maybe we can skip dessert… head back to my place.”

 

“Yeah?” He grins. “Something sweeter in mind?”

 

Eudora hums.

 

“Might even let you have a taste…”

 

Smirking, she chews her bottom lip. She’s fooling around. He can tell by how hard she’s concentrating to keep that straight face. So it shouldn’t turn him on.

 

It shouldn’t.

 

_Oh, my god, it does, though._

 

Her teeth leave a red, wet mark. It’s enough to shoot a fine flicker of heat down into his abdomen.

 

She needs to stop whatever she’s doing. He cannot deal with an untimely hard-on today.

 

The problem’s solved for him. The sound of someone retching, loudly, behind them, has the same dampening effect as a bucket of ice water.

 

“You guys are something else. Did you lift those lines straight from a porno? ‘Cos they’re golden, they really are.”

 

The voice taunts them from the doorway, and they both turn to see Beeman, leant against the wall with his arms folded; a shit-eating grin is slowly spreading over his features. _Bastard_ , hisses the voice in the back of Diego’s head.

 

“Shakespeare, actually.” He says, acidly.

 

“Yeah, ok. We all know you can’t actually read, Hargreeves.”

 

“Jesus, Beeman,” spits Eudora. “How long have you been stood there?”

 

“Long enough. Don’t worry, your secret’s still safe with me. Not that I approve of your man of choice – still can’t believe you chose him over sexy intern Paul – but, the heart wants what it wants, I guess. You do you.”

 

He shrugs and pushes his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. Such a minute gesture would be innocuous on anyone else, but on Beeman it’s infuriating.

 

“Something you needed? Or are you just here to be an ass?” Diego says gruffly, unamused. He folds his arms over his chest.

 

Beeman sticks his hands up in surrender. But, seeing as its him, it just manages to make him look all the more punch-able. He should thank his lucky stars this isn’t a real surrender, thinks Diego, just deciding that, if it were, Beeman would have a few bullet-shaped holes in him by now. White flag be damned.

 

“Hey - isn’t like I planned to walk in on… _that_. Gross. I was looking for you, actually, Hargreeves. Sarge wants a word. I’d go now if I were you, she doesn’t sound happy.”

 

Diego grimaces. The last thing he needs is Cha-Cha on his ass – he’s already navigating treacherous waters after accidentally-on-purpose conducting a search without a valid warrant.

 

“I heard you made detective, by the way, Patch. Congratulations.”

 

“Thanks, Beeman.”

 

“We’ll miss you down here. Isn’t that right… _tough guy?_ ”

 

Beeman punches Diego in the arm as he passes. Diego bristles.

 

_The boss won’t be impressed if you deck a fellow officer. Even if said fellow officer is a certified ass who totally deserves it._

 

“Right,” he says, through clenched teeth. He looks back at Eudora, who’s straightening her ponytail. She rolls her eyesand taps the collar of her uniform.

 

Oh. Yeah. The buttons she’d been in the process of fixing on his shirt, before they were interrupted. He neatens up his uniform, mouths a ‘thanks’, and makes his way to the Sergeant’s desk.

 

_Happy thoughts. You have a date tonight with the love of your life._

 

_Whatever Cha-Cha throws at you, you can damn well take it._

 

 

  
It turns out the Sergeant has a pretty solid arsenal. The barked, ‘Sit down, shut up,’ when he enters the office is enough to warn him that – yep – he’s in trouble.

 

She must have been yelling pretty hard, because when Diego shuts the office door the whole precinct is staring at him. Most of them are grimacing. Sexy intern Paul has a look of abject terror.

 

Later, he and Macpherson pin him down at the water cooler. They’re desperate to know how he can come away from a grilling from the Sergeant like it’s no sweat. Macpherson is leant casually against the wall giving off his lazy-cat grin. He’s amused because it’s familiar territory: excluding Diego, Macpherson is the usual suspect for the firing line. Poor Paul is too new to see what’s so funny. He has a face like curdled milk. (Which does kind of lessen his usual pretty-boy magnetism, but it doesn’t stop Administrator Jan from oogling him by the copier.)

 

“Cha-Cha scares the living daylights outta me,” admits Paul, then looks over his shoulder frantically. “Wait, are we allowed to call her that? That’s a nickname, right?”

 

Diego shrugs. Over Macpherson’s shoulder, he has a clear view of Patch’s desk. She can’t see him. She’s absorbed in some files. In one hand is the gnawed end of a ball-point pen, the other twists her ring on her pinkie finger.

 

“Sarge doesn’t bother me.”

 

“Tell us your secret, man,” Paul breathes in awe.

 

He doesn’t have a secret to tell. Mostly he just checks out when Cha-Cha goes ballistic. Daydreams.

 

Today, he’s thinking about Christmas cards, the most scenic places for making-out under the stars, and what jeans will go best with that shirt Patch said looked good on him.

 

He claps Paul on the shoulder. “Just, go to your happy place.”

 

 

-

 

 

  
Klaus opens his eyes to total crushing darkness, and knows he’s in the mausoleum.

 

It’s been a while, but there’s something unforgettable about the air in this place (and boy, has he tried to forget it.) It’s that cloying damp smell that arrives on the inward breath: the smell of mulch, and lichen. Mould, moss – all sorts of things grow down here, but nothing that blooms in sunlight; only things that feed on the stale rainwater that finds its way in, somehow... Only things that grow blind, groping feelers up to the surface they won’t reach. They aren’t to know. Life’s try or die.

 

He takes one long breath to steady himself, before checking if he can move. He senses out his toes. He can feel the sturdy leather of shoes he is wearing, which is initially odd, as he makes a point not to cover up his feet, and additionally strange, since, before this, he’d been lying in bed.

 

Nope, no movement – he thought as much, but it’s still disappointing. His muscles are a lot like the stone that inters him; cold and not pliable. For all intents and purposes, he’s a cadaver. Which is fitting, in a twisted way. _When in Rome, Do as the Romans Do._

 

There’s no sign of life – is that something real doctors say or just TV ones? You’d think he’d know. He’s been to A&E so many times he’s on first name basis with the nursing staff. But he can’t remember, his visits are usually fogged-up by the haze of overdose and Naloxone come-down; rinse and repeat.

 

He is giving no signs of life for the people who aren’t here to check them. Except for his eyes, which skitter back and forth over the ceiling. If he keeps them idle for too long he might lose the only part of his locked-in body he can still control. He looks around like he’s drowning and the walls surrounding are air. His eyes start to adjust.

 

He looks to his immediate left, as best he can without being able to move his neck, and he isn’t alone in here. There’s a woman next to him; once a woman, anyway – now she looks drained and desiccated. She smiles, her lips hard and wrinkled like dried fruit and pulled over her toothless gums. She doesn’t have eyes, under those sunken lids, but if she did, she might be winking, as well-meaning old women do when they slip you candy from their purse. She’s propped up on one arm, lounging, and her tattered dress is doing a bad job at covering the breasts hanging limply like wet socks.

 

She says something, but her voice is lost and there’s only a faint rasp.

 

He says, _I can’t hear you_.

 

But he isn’t able to talk either, stuck like this.

 

Ragged breathing to his right – he looks, and the other body is right beside him, a man, close enough to brush his nose against Klaus’ face. He seems… fresher. Still has eyes, at least, milky white and wide and staring at Klaus.

 

There’s a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead, crusted with blood, black and flaking. The man seems to want to say something too. His lips are moving. And then the hard body of a beetle pushes its way out and scurries away, and his mouth is still again.

 

Klaus looks back at the ceiling, and there’s Ben, lying up there. There’s a veil between them that shimmers like water, so they’re like two images reflecting one another. He doesn’t think Ben sees him, though. He looks afraid. One of his eyes is ringed by the dark shadow of a bruise. Ben’s hoodie is covered in a thin layer of dust, drawstrings dangling down, and where the pale skin of his neck shows, there’s another angry bruise – definite finger marks. A bead of blood wells on his bottom lip. It falls, lands warm and wet on Klaus’ cheek.

 

But then Ben does see him. He must – there’s a spark of recognition in his eyes. Ben starts speaking, urgently, and though he’s able to talk the sound is distorted. Everything sounds underwater, scattered.

 

 _I can’t hear you, Ben,_ he thinks. _I’m sorry_.

 

And then hands close around his wrist. One around his ankle. One around his neck. Cold fingers pull at his shirt and smooth their hands over his belly: belonging to the woman and the man, yes, but others too, countless hands grabbing him all over. The groaning noise of the dead gets louder until it’s boiling surf, ringing in his ears, until it’s screaming and crying. The hands are hurting him, tearing and pulling. One of them yanks his head back, snap, by a handful of hair; a loud rip, and one of them comes up with a fistful of his shirt. And Ben’s still trying to tell him something, but there’s no way of hearing him now. They want a piece of life. He’s slipping away. They’ll snatch him up till he’s all gone.

 

A hand clamps down on his nose and mouth so he can’t breathe. There’s no way of shouting for help now, if anybody were listening.

 

_Somebody come find me – I’m in the mausoleum!_

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

…Except – he isn’t.

 

He comes to, and he’s back in the apartment, in bed. A film of sweat lies between him and his pyjama shirt – not his, _Dave’s_ – too big. They went halves on a set. Dave has the bottoms.

 

He’s starting to feel like he can breathe again, as he’s looking up at another ceiling he knows, except this one is plaster, paint. No sprawling plants, no bugs, no cracks.

 

Well, only one. One shaped like a lightening strike branches out from the hanging light. Dave keeps saying he’ll make an appointment to get it checked out, but Klaus likes it; he thinks it adds character, and raffish charm.

 

_“You won’t like it when the ceiling comes down on us.”_

 

_“Bold of you to assume I’d say no to a quick and painless death.”_

 

He should stop making jokes like that, really. Dave always bristles – he’s never satisfied even when Klaus insists he doesn’t mean it. Psychology majors, amiright? It’s all suicidal tendencies this, repressed childhood trauma that. _Self-depreciative humour, yadda yadda…_

 

He can hear Dave’s steady breathing beside him. He starts to relax a little.

 

There’s a problem, though.

 

He still can’t move.

 

 

 

The shadow slips past the door that’s open to the hallway, lit by the light he’ll swear he turned off. It’s a liquid shadow, like water, shapeless, and it reaches out across the bedroom carpet. It starts to take form. The body of a man stretched as shadows often are to carnival mirror proportions, two spidery-long legs – long arms, ending in hands that are lengthened like claws.

 

It isn’t easy to explain what happens next. He’s tried before. The shadow lifts, bleeds into the air like ink on blotting paper. Something contains it, it hits invisible edges and stops, fans out, until standing in its place is the physical form of a man.

 

Like the shadow, the man is disproportionate. Queasily so; its elongated arms and legs hang limply from his torso. It’s like a puppet or a caricature; one that has captured the spark of unnatural life.

 

A key part of the uneasy feeling is that the man’s feet don’t touch the carpet, but hover just a little way above.

 

Klaus’ heart is pounding. He thought he was done with this; it’d been so long since the last time.

 

Nothing’ll stop the vision once it gets here.

 

_Almost nothing._

 

...But he’s made promises to stop, to get better, and he has the chip to prove it.

 

The man made of shadow drifts towards him. It moves like a balloon pulled along by a piece of string; as if its movements aren’t fully its own. Its legs hit the foot of the bed with a quiet thump, and it doesn’t react.

 

Klaus can see its face from here. Most of it is obscured by the shadow of a brimmed bowler hat. It’s bearded, and under a wiry moustache are a pair of cracked lips.

 

It takes him a moment to realise that the lips are moving. Cold fear runs down his back.

 

It’s never tried to talk to him before.

 

He can’t make it out. Not that he wants to. There’s only the rasping sound of a voice that hasn’t been used in years.

 

The man seems to realise that it isn’t being understood. Its body drifts sideways, jerks to a stop. It comes forward.

 

It’s heading for Klaus’ side of the bed. It’ll be out of his line of vision in a second, and that terrifies him. Seeing it is better than not but knowing that it’s there.

 

He makes a desperate attempt at movement. He manages to make a fist, disturbing the bedsheets, and he must make some kind of whimpering sound, because the body sleeping next to him stirs.

 

He knows that the thing is stood beside him, on his right side. He can still hear its laboured attempts at speech. Now it’s closer he can tell that it consists of just two words, unintelligible, but repeated, like a stuck record.

 

He tries to make more noise. If he can wake Dave, it’ll leave him alone. It doesn’t like to be watched.

 

He tries to move the covers again, using all his strength to tug – once, twice –

 

He lets out a final whine of distress – and, _thank God_ , on the third tug, Dave grunts and wakes.

 

 

He might cry from relief.

 

“Wha – hey…” the covers shift as Dave comes to. “What is it?” He says.

 

It takes him a second, until he must see Klaus, body tensed and eyes wide and staring. He places one hand on Klaus’ head, and the other comes to rest on the side of Klaus’ face, as he comes finally into his line of vision. Bleary-eyed because his glasses are on the bedside table: he’s the most welcome sight.

 

“Oh, you haven’t had one of these in a while…” he says. His voice is soft and measured without even a trace of panic.

 

“Look at me,” he says, and Klaus doesn’t have to be told to lock his eyes onto the pair looking fondly down at him. If he can focus all his attention there and not at the shadow looming beside him or that awful hoarse whispering then he can get through this.

 

“Try to relax, and breathe…” says Dave. Klaus tries, he does, to steady his breathing; his outward breath breaks into a hiccuping sob. Dave’s face scrunches up in pity.

 

“I know, sweetheart,” he murmurs. He starts carding his hand through Klaus’ hair, pushing back the damp curls from his forehead.

 

The thing leans down. Klaus feels its breath on the side of his face. Moist, and cold.

 

“Can you make a fist? Both hands?”

 

He does. Dave places his hand on one, and gives it a squeeze.

 

“Good, that’s good – there ya go… keep breathing, I’ll get the light.”

 

The whispering is right by his ear. When Dave slides out of bed to flick the switch, Klaus’ eyes don’t leave him for a second.

 

Breathing. Dave said breathe. So breathe.

 

He inhales, and exhales, and counts one. In and out, two…three..

 

…Four…

…Five…

…Six…

…Seven…

 

And again.

 

…One…

…Two…

…Three…

…Four –

 

And, suddenly, he’s able to hear what the voice is trying to say. The two words that are being repeated over and over.

 

_Come home._

 

_Come home._

 

_Come home._

 

 

Dave turns on the light and it bursts through the room, blinding; Klaus has to squeeze his eyes shut.

 

Little by little, feeling returns to his limbs. He is able to clench his toes. When, after opening his eyes, he can move his head again, he turns to look.

 

It’s gone. Of course.

 

As soon as he can sit up, Dave pulls him into his arms and rocks him and rubs his back like he’s a child, murmuring “You’re okay,” into his hair, until he stops shaking.

 

When he can talk again, the first word he utters is a less than eloquent, _“Fuck.”_

 

“Fuck. I forget how much _they_ suck ass.”

 

Dave laughs. He takes Klaus’ face in his hands and wipes away the damp from his cheeks.

 

Huh. He doesn’t even remember crying.

 

“Do you want something to drink?” Says Dave.

 

“A tequila double’d be just the ticket, thanks…” he jokes weakly. He remembers the damp air of the tomb, and his heavy tongue, and how it sucked all the moisture from you until you were dried up like the dead. And he remembers the bug crawling out of the corpse’s mouth – _eurgh_ – he can practically feel those hard little legs poking around in his.

 

“...Actually, I’d love a glass of water.”

 

Eyes closed, he listens to Dave pottering around in the kitchen, the soft clink of glass and thump of a cupboard door; the gush of the faucet.

 

He turns off the overhead light as he comes back, settles beside Klaus and makes sure that his shaky hands have a solid grip on the glass before he lets go. Klaus misses, the first time, glass hitting his teeth with a chink. Dave watches him take small sips until the entire glass is drained. His eyes are sparkling with concern, and there’s a crease between his brows. He’s put his glasses on crooked in the dark and it makes Klaus smile.

 

“Hey,” he says, pulling the glass from his lips. “Stop that.”

 

“What?”

 

He touches his finger to the wrinkle in Dave’s brow, giggling quietly as Dave’s goes cross-eyed watching him.

 

“ _That_. You’re doing your worried face again. I’m fine, Davey.”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“I’m okay.”

 

“- because you don’t have to be. You know that, right? It’s totally normal and fine if you’re not.” Dave says quietly. He takes the glass from his hands and puts it down on the bedside table.

 

Klaus is chewing his thumbnail. He frowns. He doesn’t want to lie to Dave…

 

But he also doesn’t want to worry him. How many relationships has he ruined that way? Not even romantic ones; he’s thinking of his family. He’s thinking of waking up to the blinks of life support, surrounded by brothers and sisters, being told that he’d been out for days and he’s a lucky-sunnuva-bitch. He’s thinking of Vanya’s red-rimmed eyes; Diego looking sickly pale like he hasn’t slept the whole time Klaus’ been out of it.

 

He doesn’t want Dave thinking that he’s slipping back to the dark place he was in when they first met. Or, God forbid, worse.

 

Because Dave has only seen the surface of it, really. He has no idea, and Klaus can’t imagine even Dave – his sweet, heart-of-gold Dave – sticking around to watch that shit-show go down.

 

It hasn’t come to that yet, though, and he doesn’t plan on letting it.

 

“I’m okay. I’m just a little shaken up, that’s all.” He says.

 

Dave stares at him for a long while, like he’s trying to decide if he believes him.

 

Then he says, “Okay.”

 

Klaus sticks out his little finger, grinning. “Pinky swear.”

 

Dave rolls his eyes. He hooks their pinkies together, snorts.

 

They settle, eventually, after Dave has finished cooing and planting kisses on the heptagram tattoo on the base of Klaus’ neck (this guy, honestly.) He has an arm flung over Klaus’ torso, big spoon style.

 

It’s still a few hours before Klaus can drift back into sleep. By this time, Dave is already snoring softly beside him. He slows his breathing to match the rise and fall of Dave’s chest against his back; a grounding rhythm like the crest and fall of surf. He counts. It helps to calm him just like it always has.

 

_Seven keeps us safe._

 

 

-

 

 

 

When Luther unlocks the door to his apartment, his heart jolts in his chest. There’s someone already inside, sat with their back to the door on the sofa.

 

But he recognises that hat, comedically outdated, and the stern set of shoulder squared under a tailored jacket. The years spanning from childhood, which have pulled him up to a lonely apartment and meaningless success have turned this man’s dark hair to solemn grey. The figure is the same, though. It’s one he’d know anywhere.

 

“Dad,” he says, tugging off his jacket. It’s become a habit to toss it over the kitchen table when he comes in from work. A reflexive note of shame has him hang it on the coatrack by the door.

 

“I wasn’t expecting company,” he says, not trying to hide the surprise in his voice. Only his father would show up so late, unannounced – he was never the most tactful of people. He consciously replaces last night’s bottle in the cabinet, running his tongue over his teeth. He hopes the taint of beer and clinging residue of the bar, always the faint damning afterimage of sweat and someone else’s smoke, is not too conspicuous.

 

His phone rings for the second time that night, before his father has a chance to explain his sudden arrival.

 

“I’ll just get this – it’ll be Allison- ”

 

It isn’t. Luther closes his eyes and sighs before accepting the call.

 

“Hey, Van. Sorry I missed you before, everything okay?”

 

There’s a ragged intake of breath on the other end. It’s worse than he thought, and he braces himself.

 

“I don’t know how to… I… It’s bad, Luther.”

 

Luther pinches the bridge of his nose. _This is going to take a while._ Might as well get his father something to drink. He’ll put on a pot of tea.

 

“That’s okay,” he says, slowly. In his mind, he’s still addressing the Vanya of their youth. Vanya who wakes up crying and sees her ghosts. He can be forgiven for that: adulthood hasn’t changed her, much.

 

“Take your time,” he says. He manages to find the teapot; a secret Santa gift, or another housewarming present. He blows away the dust, and methodically fills it with water.

 

“Still drink Earl Grey?” He calls out to his father. He’s certain he has teabags somewhere, for when the doctor bestows a rare visit; it’ll be at the back of the cupboard if it’s anywhere – yep, behind the risotto rice.

 

An agonised whimper sounds out of the receiver.

 

“Let’s walk it through, yeah? You had one of your dreams, right?” He decides to leave his conversation with Allison out of it. The insinuation is a little cruel, that they’d talk about her like that. It’s sort of conspiratorial, and his youngest sister is fragile enough without that niggling suspicion of alienation.

 

“If it’s Klaus again – he’s still at the centre, remember? And he’s doing good.”

 

“No, Luther, he’s… _it’s really been that long for you?_ No, it’s not Klaus.”

 

He wonders what she means by that. _‘It’s really been that long for you?’_

 

“Well, good.” He says.

 

“Luther, it’s dad,”

 

Luther puts two mugs on the countertop, side by side, and doles out a spoonful of sugar to each. He chuckles. Easily solved.

 

“Well then, you’ve got nothing to worry about – Dad just got here, he’s with me.”

 

There’s a beat of silence.

 

“Luther,” comes Vanya’s voice. It’s marred by static, and choked, and she sounds so small; her voice is a fractured voice. She sounds confused. It’s nothing new.

 

“Try not to worry, okay? Have you taken your pill today? You know you get worked up when you forget.”

 

The pot on the stove starts to bubble.

 

“Luther,” she says again, with urgency.

 

She takes a deep breath.

 

“Dad’s dead.”

 

The pot starts to whistle.

 

He gets the sense that there’s somebody stood behind him. _‘Don’t look back’_ – the words are in his mind, some kind of half-formed memory. He feels breath on his neck. A draft, he thinks – but, no – all windows are closed. And he can hear it, breathing; shaky, soft breathing, so close that, were anyone else in the room, they couldn’t have heard it. A death-rattle, is what they used to call it; he’s not sure how he knows that.

 

“That’s impossible,” he says. His lips form the words but there’s no sound. The sudden, gutting drop in temperature has stolen the air from him.

 

“Luther,” Vanya says, on the other side, her distant, rasping-static voice, sounding from the receiver he’s still gripping in his hand. “Are you still there?”

 

Is he? The teapot’s wail is rising. The spout spews steam that ought to be hot, but the air in the room is bleak as winter. An empty, empty cold.

 

The teapot wails but he can still hear that terrible rattle. It too is rising in his ear, to a pained groan – then louder – a hollow scream – so loud, so tortured – he fights back the urge to sob.

 

_I’m hearing things. Seeing things._

 

 _There’s nothing here,_ he tells himself.

 

And, as if to prove the contrary, a hand grabs him by the shoulder.

 

How can he scream, without air?

 

“Luther?” Says Vanya. It drags him to his senses – he takes the pot off the heat and the sound fades.

 

Slowly, he turns around, and faces his empty apartment.

 

There is nobody else in the room. No one’s father on the sofa.

 

“I’m here.” He says, finally. He takes out one of the teabags, puts back the empty cup, and pushes the box out of sight, to the back of the cupboard, where is belongs.

 

He fills the other, if only to reassure himself of his steady hand.

 

“How?” He says.

 

“They’re still waiting for the coroner’s report,” she says, gently. “But they found him with half a bottle of pills.”

 

“Suicide.”

 

“He took them with his tea.”

 

Luther pulls the cup he’s about to drink from away from his lips. His mouth feels dry. “Ah,” he says, simply.

 

“I’m sorry,” says Vanya. “I know you were closest with him.” Luther pours the rest of the tea down the sink. He rubs his eye with the palm of his free hand and rests his forehead against the cold cabinet door.

 

 

“When’s the funeral?”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was hard to write for some reason; I went through like, five whole rewrites and then I just gave up. 
> 
> Alternative chapter summary: Diego is whipped af, I burst into flames at the thought of Klaus calling Dave ‘Davey’, and I continue to not be able to write from Luther’s perspective.


	3. Weddings and Funerals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allison is nervous about having her family stay in the run-up to the funeral.
> 
> Everyone meets Dave.
> 
> Diego gets himself barred (probably).

 

**PART THREE**

 

**WEDDINGS AND FUNERALS**

 

_Hill House, Then_

 

 

  
Allison, belly-flopped on her patchwork coverlet with an open book, thought about how great it was to finally have a room to herself. Back at home (she refused to call Hill House home) she had to share with Vanya. Which had been fine, for a while. When her sister was still pink and tiny and cute, the anticipation of future tea parties had been enough – the novelty of it – of having another girl in the house.

 

But Vanya was nothing like she’d imagined. All Allison had for reference at that age were her American Girl dolls, who were quite happy to be cradled and swaddled and read to. Her real live sister was so quiet, so sullen, and Allison would’ve had more luck squeezing their geriatric cat into a tutu and fairy wings.

 

If she’d known from the beginning that young children spend most of their time crying and puking she would’ve thought about it more. If she’d known that she’d have to surrender her television set to the baby channel she probably would’ve point-blank refused. Not that it would’ve made a difference. Their home in the city was no sardine can, but once they hit five kids personal space became short in supply.

 

Hill House couldn’t be more different. It could throw its arms out without ever coming close to brushing the hills dissolving into mist behind it. Hill House had more rooms than it knew what to do with. Sure, the Pink Room was on the grisly side, with its faded, fleshy wallpaper and the lingering moth-bitten smell – but at least it was Allison’s; and _only_ Allison’s. Slowly, like fingerprints on glass, the room was collecting little touches of her. She admired them from her spot on the bed. A growing collection of photographs sprawled over the wall opposite the window. A few pages she’d torn out of magazines had been taped up on the wardrobe doors.

 

She turned the page. After slogging through the first couple of sentences, realising she had no idea what was going on, she flipped back, sighed softly, and started from the top. She’d been on the same paragraph for hours.

 

In theory, her room was a place for quiet alone time. Which might’ve worked out, if they hadn’t put her next to Diego.

 

There was another _THUD_ and she snapped her book shut.

 

It was, what? Ten? Ten-thirty? From the sliver of sky she could see through the curtains, which had steadily descended from day-old-snow to lint-grey, it was time her little brother were getting ready for bed. If the noise was anything to go by, that was last thing he had in mind. For about a half-hour now, she’d been hearing on-off banging sounds, not deafening, but loud enough to make the walls tremble and send the lampshade rattling. Loud enough to be seriously _irritating_. She couldn’t pin it down - it sounded one minute like someone jumping from the bed onto the floor, the next like a baseball being boomerang-ed off the walls. Neither of these she’d put past Diego. In fact, those were exactly the sort of meaningless, deliciously disruptive tasks only he’d undertake, for the sole purpose of pissing her off.

 

Another thud. She snarled and tossed the book to the end of the bed where it landed with an anti-climatic _pat_.

 

If only Mom were here – but she was always conveniently elsewhere when Diego was being an ass. She’d already put the twins to bed. She’d be down in one of the lounges with her rollers and paint. Mrs Sanderson, who came with the house, would’ve been useful in catching Diego in the act. But that was a dead end. She’d be long gone by now – she always made a point to get shot of the House before dark.

 

Allison was going to have to deal with this herself. She whirled around to face the wallpaper and _pounded_. And then she knelt, seething, glaring at the cluster of greying carnations she’d just hammered with her fist. For the first time in hours, a heavy silence settled on the room. Her mouth twitched into a grin. _Yeah_ , she thought. _That’s right, don’t make me come in there_. It was high time Diego showed her the respect their two year age gap was due. She gave herself a mental high-five for successful big-sisterly intimidation.

 

Then the door flew open.

 

“Will you quit it?” Diego glowered at her from the door frame.

 

Allison blinked. Diego was, in fact, in his pyjamas. His arms were crossed sternly over his chest, and though the effect was damped by his fleecy Batman pyjama bottoms, a size too big, from under which poked his toes, he was quite clearly mad. At _her_. She was so thrown off by it that she had to collect herself before she could start the older sibling lecture.

 

“Quit what?” She said, dumbstruck.

 

Diego huffed. He gave her a _look_ , and said, slowly, as if he were talking to one of the twins – “ _Banging. On. The wall._ I’m trying to read my comics.”

 

Allison could’ve kicked him. If she weren’t trying to stay in Mom’s good books – because Diego was such a momma’s boy, and if she laid a finger on his head he’d go crying to Grace and make _her_ seem like the asshole – if not for the consequences, then come morning his shin would be sporting a nasty bruise. Being an infuriating little twerp was one thing; if his new trick was framing _her_ for his mischief they were broaching a whole new plane of torment. “Diego,” she said, with gritted teeth, standing to utilise the few inches she still had on him. “You were the one banging on the wall.”

 

“No I wasn’t!” He yelled.

 

She opened her mouth to protest. And there it was again.

 

This time it was softer, but closer, less like someone jumping off the bed a room away, and more like someone knocking on the wall. One, twice, and then a third time, and then it was quiet again.

 

Allison froze. She stood staring at the source of the sound, her heart being so fast she could feel it in her neck. _If it wasn’t Diego then who…?_

 

Of course. She was so stupid. She’d been played so easily, thinking that Diego acted alone. She’d been so wound up that she’d forgotten about his little minion. She could picture Klaus only a foot away, stood on Diego’s bed, giggling. Hadn’t she seen them at dinner, giggling and whispering and shushing each other when she looked over? She rolled her eyes, and turned to look pointedly at her brother.

 

“Real funny, you jerk.”

 

Diego’s expression sent another bolt of fear down into her gut. His eyes were just as wide as hers had been. She shivered. His acting was good – she’d give him that.

 

“Tell Klaus to stop it. You’re both idiots,” She said. Her voice was wavering.

 

Diego shook his head. He looked sickly. And deadly serious. “I was the only one in there,” he said.

 

“You’re lying.”

 

“No,” he shook his head. His voice had veered into this quiet, sincere tone that was so unlike Diego, who never took anything seriously, that it sent her stomach reeling. “I promise,” he said, his eyes shining. “I’m not lying. It was just me.” At the end of his sentence his voice wobbled, and she knew he was afraid. She knew too that he was telling the truth – she could tell he was.

 

Which left a big, glowering question mark, didn’t it? A horrible locked box to be opened.

 

Alison walked back to her bed, wondering at the calmness within herself, and knelt on the coverlet. _Don’t be silly now, she thought,_ staring squarely at the expanse of wall above her headboard. It was only a noise – just a noise, and – she shivered – a terrible cold. Old houses have pipes and old houses have draughts, and even if it knocked three times, it wouldn’t do it again.

 

“What are you doing?” Diego hissed. The hush of bare feet, careful steps across carpet, and a creaking dip as he sat himself on her bed. She felt her brother shiver. So, he could feel it too, the chill. He could hear the knocking – _and wasn’t that the strangest part..?_ thought Allison.

 

She raised a fist – held it for a moment, over the fleshy wall.

 

“Allison, what are you doing?” Diego said again.

 

Allison knocked. Once was all she could manage, before flinching her hand back like she’d been scalded. She sucked in a deep breath. Then, quickly, jerking, she knocked twice more. It was a pattern that couldn’t be repeated by chance, if it were a clanging pipe or something simple like that.

 

The silence that followed seemed to confirm her suspicions. “See,” she said, turning to Diego, who was sat at the end of the bed, hugging his knees. “It was only –“

 

The terrible rapping came like a burst of artillery fire, so sharp and sudden that Allison gasped and scrambled back to her brother at the end of the bed. They stared, silent, at the blank space of wallpaper. Three knocks this time – the same pattern that she’d tapped out echoed back at her. It sounded like a game, like something that children do – there was nothing wicked in it, and yet…

 

And yet.

 

“Something is knocking on the walls,” said Diego, his voice quiet and rational. He shuffled closer to her, minutely, still staring over his knees, at the space above the headboard.

 

Yes, nodded Allison. I’m not afraid. But I’m really cold. This is what they mean by a chill going up your back. If this was it, it wasn’t a nice feeling. It was like something alive; alive and crawling, insect-like, up out of your stomach, and down, up and down.

 

“It’s just a noise,” she said, and moved closer to her brother until they were sat tightly together. It made her feel safer. Warm shoulder to warm shoulder in the cold, cold room. He didn’t push her away. She was right: it was just a noise. It was an evil noise, wicked, and it wasn’t supposed to be there – but what could a noise do to them, anyway?

 

_Not the noise_ , she said to herself darkly, _but whatever’s making it._ _That’s what we should be scared of._

 

“It’s moving,” said Diego.

 

It was moving. They followed it with their eyes as it crept along the edge of the room. It was hollow, thought Allison. It was an empty sound. Now it was at the dresser; the boyband picture slid to the bottom of the frame. Now it was shaking the wall mirror. _Bang_.

 

Now it was at the door. Allison heard it crash against the wood, louder and splintering (was it trying to get inside? Did it have hands to turn the handle? Was it strong enough to break its way in?) and she instinctively threw her arms around Diego’s shoulders. He grabbed her shirtsleeve, his short nails scratching her forearm.

 

_Bang_. A hanging picture near the doorframe fell with a crash. The entire wall seemed to be quivering now that the pounding had reached the door, making it so that they were surrounded on all sides by sound. Methodical; steady, but speeding up, speeding up, like a heart beat, like a drum beat, something rising on a wave to a dreadful crescendo.

 

“Go away!” Diego shouted wildly. “Go away, go away!” He made a dry, choked sound, a sobbing sound. He was shaking in her arms. All she could do was hold him tighter. He was the only still thing in the chaos.

 

The quiet came suddenly. _Dead-stop_ suddenly. Allison didn’t dare let out a breath and disturb it. _Now he’s done it,_ she thought, madly, her eyes flicking right and left over her stilled bedroom. _It was looking for someone inside, and now it knows we’re here._ Cold swelled into the room and lapped at them, flooding in and flowing over. Diego’s teeth were chattering. And, in the distance, the whelping of dogs.

 

When the door burst in she didn’t hear herself scream – her eyes were pinched shut, and a roaring sounded in her ears like she was deep underwater. But she felt the rasp of her throat and the gush of the air being sucked from her chest. She heard Diego screaming beside her and she thought, _I must be screaming too._ Two hands closed on her forearms, and realisation shockwaved through her body. It has me. _It has me._

 

Someone far above the water shouted her name.

 

How could it know her name?

 

But the more it said it; _Allison_ , the more she came to recognise the voice in the darkness. She knew it. Yes she did. She knew it. She opened her eyes.

 

She opened her eyes, and found herself face to face with her father. He had a hand on each shoulder, Allison’s and Diego’s, and was shaking them, hard. She saw in his eyes a rare flash of anger, but they were also wide, and bloodshot, and uncharacteristically rattled.

 

“What’s the matter with you?” He shouted, releasing them now that they’d stopped screaming. Allison opened her mouth but couldn’t find the words. Diego, just as speechless, opened his and whimpered. “Why are you screaming?” Said their father, sharply.

 

“W-what was that?” Diego said.

 

“What was what?” Said the doctor.

 

“The buh… the b-banging,” he stammered.

 

“What banging?”

 

Diego shook his head. “Didn’t you hear it?” His voice was barely above a whisper.

 

All the fear had drained from their father’s eyes. He looked at them both, one at a time, with clinical blue eyes. He had a way of looking at you like a puzzle, when he was trying to figure you out. He was doing it now, and it made Allison feel exposed. Their father’s look had a steel edge. There was something of a scalpel about it. It was a dissecting look.

 

“All I heard,” he said, “was the two of you, from the other side of the House.”

 

Allison shook her head. She could feel her cheeks burning up. There was no way that they’d imagined that awful sound. They both saw the mirror shake, and there was the picture frame face down on the floor. “There were these loud bangs all over the walls,” she said firmly. “We both heard it. It was so loud. _How_ didn’t you hear it?” Her voice had climbed to a shout, still trembling with fear and furious at her Dad’s disbelief.

 

“Enough!” the doctor’s voice boomed and they both startled. Allison sunk further into her brother’s side. Diego still had a fist clenched in the back of her nightshirt, and it tightened.

 

Hargreeves cooled instantly. The only mark of his loss of temper was that same spark of fading thunder in the blue. He straightened up, sighing.

 

“I’d expect an overreaction like that from the little ones, but not from you two.” He rubbed a hand over his face, smoothing back a lock of dark hair that had sprung out of place. He was wearing his robe and slippers over his striped pyjama set, but as his arm fell back to his side, just before the sleeve fell over his hand, Allison saw the smudges of ink on his fingers. It could only mean that the doctor had been in his office all this time, working steadily through whatever he’d missed dinner for.

 

Work had really taken hold of him lately. They rarely saw him before – now he was like a ghost in the House, to be spotted late at night as you went for a glass of water, drifting through pale moonlight from his office to his bedroom.

 

The strain showed in his face. It was as if time had sped up for him since they moved here. As if the House were ageing him. The shadows under his eyes had deepened, gone gaunt and hollow like his cheeks. The grey taking root in his hair seemed to come out stronger, like a touch of the year’s first frost. He softened, his shoulders dipping slightly.

 

“What if your mother had heard you? You know how she gets. You know what worry does to her in her condition.” He scolded, a little bit quieter, a lot wearier. Allison felt a pinch of guilt. She’d feel awful if she gave Mom one of her migraines.

 

“There’s nothing to be frightened of,” he continued. He wasn’t looking at them but out of the bedroom window into the night beyond. It had turned to black without her noticing. “The plumbing is old… it can make a lot of noise that seems louder in the night. It’ll take some getting used to, I understand that, but you _must_ think of the twins – they look to you for example. They’ll never settle unless you show them that there’s nothing to be afraid of. You are lucky that you didn’t wake them tonight.”

 

He cleared his throat.

 

“Now – get to sleep, both of you. I won’t tell your mother you’re still up and about,” he gave Diego a stilted good-night pat on the shoulder and made towards the door. He stopped at the threshold and rested his hand on the frame, staring at it deep in thought. Allison saw his mouth open, then close, as if he’d gone to speak then changed his mind. And then he did speak, so softly that she couldn’t be sure he’d heard him right.

 

“You will see and hear things in a house like this that will frighten you. Keep your head, whatever happens. Whatever you see or think you see – it can’t hurt you. Nothing in this house can hurt you.”

 

He left them shivering on the pink bedspread. They could hear his footsteps echo all the way across the landing, but there wasn’t any creak or click of a bedroom door. He’d gone back to the shadowy southern quarter where his office nestled between locked doors to forbidden rooms. A beat of silence passed, before Allison turned to look at Diego, and found him looking back at her.

 

Neither of them spoke, but they understood each other. It was an expression of solidarity, and a promise not to forget what they’d both heard and felt.

 

“Can I stay here?” Diego spoke before she could. His lips were pressed into a fine line. He wasn’t quite meeting her eyes, and his voice had taken on a gruff, macho edge. She didn’t tell him that she’d been about to ask the same. She just nodded.

 

They settled on opposite sides – as far apart as they could be before one of them went rolling off the edge; back-to-back, so that they could almost pretend they were sleeping alone. Allison took pains to make sure that none of her limbs were touching his, except for one point before they fell asleep, when she had to kick him for hogging the quilt.

 

The very last thing she registered was a dog barking in the distance, quiet enough that she might’ve dreamt it, and a soft snore.

 

 

-

 

 

_MA, Now_

 

  
When it comes to family, everything is always left to Allison. So of course she’s the one who organises their father’s funeral.

 

It’s fitting, in a way, with so much of their lives being cast out for the media to peck at (she isn’t too proud to admit her own hand in that, either) that the news is broken to her at the same time it breaks to the rest of the world – a 30 second segment on the breakfast channel. At the time, she’s pouring milk into Claire’s cereal bowl, and she’s still pouring when Patrick comes running over to wrap his arms around her, rub her back, tell her he’s so sorry. _For what?_ She nearly says. His arms are a deadweight around her because he hasn’t touched her like that, like a husband, in months now. And he keeps saying how sorry he is. Telling her to breathe. How she must be in shock.

 

Allison isn’t in shock. She endures his touch for a little longer and she puts the milk carton down and puts Claire’s bowl in front of her with a smile. Claire is confused. She’ll have to talk to her later. But for now, she should eat.

 

The simple truth is that the doctor’s death has been a long time coming. Allison doesn’t feel despair, or relief, or shock. The only thought in her head is of how difficult it’ll be to arrange a funeral for a man who’d never expressed final wishes. Flowers? Music? He’d never admitted any preferences. He had no religious belief to speak of; if anything, was in vehement opposition to the practice as a whole. It was as if Reginald Hargreeves, in all his braggart egocentricity, had never stopped to consider his own mortality. And if she hadn’t just seen it on her television screen, Allison might’ve needed convincing, too. If there was ever a man too stubborn to die, it would have been her dear old Dad.

 

The tragic circumstances of his death are also very on-brand for the family. _Suicide_ , the running headlines say, when the segment has finished. The word is sinister, carries its own gravitas and sickly aftertaste without the gory details, which is, of course, why all the headlines bother to mention his manner of death. She finds out later that the reality isn’t as sensational as they lead you to picture. Still tragic – in the way that it’s tragic when _anyone_ feels forced to take their own life – but his method, the pills, is quieter. She has to admit that it has something of her father about it. What she thinks he must’ve imagined being less death, and more a dignified resignation from life.

 

The only thing about it that gives her pause is the timing. There must have been forethought, because the doctor was meticulous; she’d never known him to act without it. But why now? What was significant about now; after all those years alone, why _now_ had it only just become too much to bear?

 

She’ll give the reporters that, when they come hounding her, because they will. She’ll whip up some spiel about his isolation; his cocktail of grief and guilt, how he’d never gotten over the death of their Mom.

 

They’ll lap it up. It won’t be the truth, obviously – Dad had always thrived on his own company. But that’s what she’ll say, and her agent will say, _this is perfect timing_.

 

“All press is good press, it’ll be good to get the Hargreeves name circulating again before we sign the deal…”

 

Allison would like to think that she’s above monetising her father’s suicide. She is above it. So she won’t even think about it.

 

It doesn’t stop her agent from being right. But it’s a matter of principal.

 

This is what she’s thinking about still as she’s ironing, a week before the service. She’s ridiculously busy and Patrick is no help. She’s trying to de-crease her nice blouse for a press release meeting with the publishers that she’ll be joining via video link _(we couldn’t ask you to come all the way down to the office at this trying time)_ and the _least_ he could do is de-clutter the house for the conference call and for her family’s arrival this afternoon. And oh god, there’s that nauseous feeling again. It had been easy to ignore when she could focus on the practicality of housing her siblings, on washing bed linens and deciding who goes where and stocking the fridge, making sure she had tofu because she couldn’t quite remember whether Klaus was still flirting with veganism or if he’d abandoned it – but now it was coming closer by the minute to them all being together under the same roof. It made her sick just thinking about it.

 

No. She can deal with it later. She’ll focus on how especially _pissed_ she’s feeling this morning, with her husband, who is nowhere to be seen. And her annoyance with Claire, who she’s already told a thousand times to pack for grandma’s but she can still hear shrieking in the playroom.

 

The iron hisses angrily and spits brown across her blouse. She curses.

 

_Well, that won’t do._

 

Now she’ll have to wear the blue, and that hasn’t fit her right since she had Claire. Patrick so lovingly reminds her of her inability to shed the last few pounds of baby weight.

 

_“I can see it in your hips.”_  
Yeah. Fuck you too, asshole.

 

She kneads her temple. Takes a breath.

 

Patrick, miraculously, reappears into the bedroom, whistling a tinny little tune through his front teeth. He’s carrying a suitcase, which he tosses open onto the bed, and then he meanders over to the dresser to peruse the sock drawer.

 

“Will you grab me an aspirin while you’re up, baby?” Says Allison.

 

Patrick shoots her a look over his shoulder like he’s only just noticed her. “Headache?” He says cheerfully, not even attempting to inject a little sympathy.

 

“I feel like someone’s reaching into my brain and just… squeezing it.”

 

He laughs without humour and tosses her the emergency bottle they keep on the top for her infrequent migraines. _(Please don’t let one manifest today)._ She catches it, just. Patrick doesn’t see her roll her eyes at him. There’s something too casual, too perversely masculine, in his feeling the need to volley everything rather than pass it like a normal person. He returns to packing his suitcase. He’s tossing in shirts that she’s _literally just ironed_ in a way that’ll get them all creased up again. She doesn’t comment.

 

“It’s probably a good thing that you’re taking Claire with you to your mom’s,” she says. Patrick’s jaw twitches. He throws in a bundle of socks. He doesn’t want to have this fight again. _Too bad,_ she thinks, _he should know how unfair he’s being._ “I’m going to be so busy today. I have that call. Then I’ll be setting up the guest rooms for everyone.”

 

He shrugs. “Yeah. It’s like I said; you could use some you-time without her under your feet.”

 

_You-time,_ she spits internally. _I don’t know what part of sitting through dinner with a family that have collectively formed a vendetta against me, not to mention the recently deceased elephant in the room, that you would quantify as ‘you-time’. Not exactly a candle-lit bubble bath._ She bites her tongue and goes back to removing the crease she’s just steamed into a pair of jeans. Patrick returns to wordlessly balling up underwear to stuff along the edges of the case.

 

“I’m thinking Luther on the pull-out downstairs. He won’t mind. Vanya can have the upstairs bedroom. It’s kinda boxy but I’m sure she’ll be comfortable enough. I can’t imagine her apartment is very big.”

 

Patrick hums, not really listening. He’s scanning the floor for something. He resurfaces with a comb that he packs in with his things. It’s missing a few teeth and is clinging on to bits of lint – it’s been that long since he actually bothered to comb, rather than give his hair a two-second tousle on the way out the door. Bitterly, she considers how nice it would be if Patrick would make the same effort he makes for his Mom for his _actual wife._

 

Then again, being unfortunate enough to know her uptight bulldog of a mother-in-law, Allison could let it slide.

 

“She seeing anyone? Vanya?” Asks Patrick.  

 

Allison folds the jeans and holds them out for him. To his credit, he puts them on top, neatly pressed. _That’ll be a look,_ she thinks. _Pristine Levi’s and wrinkled Lacrosse polo: hardly the standard for Vivian’s sailing club._

 

“No,” she says. “I don’t think she will for a while. It’ll take some time for her to get over it.”

 

Patrick hums thoughtfully. “Real shitty, what happened to her. Seemed like a stand-up guy.”

 

Allison goes quiet. She focuses on straightening out Claire’s P.E uniform and smoothing over the the embroidered school logo. The shirt is sunshine yellow, and Claire looks a picture in it. Allison rests her hands on it, still warm from the hot iron and smelling like fabric softener. That clean cotton smell reminds her of when Claire was so tiny. She can close her eyes and feel soap bubbles against her skin, and smell baby shampoo, and hear nonsense babble bouncing off the bathroom tiles.

 

A nicer memory to sink into than that of what Vanya went through.

 

_What I put her through_ , she corrects herself.

 

“None of us saw it coming,” she agrees, quietly.

 

A change of subject.

 

“You know who _is_ seeing someone?” She says.

 

Patrick issues a non-committal grunt. “Luther…?” He drawls, clearly disinterested.

 

“No – _Klaus_.” She says. Even Patrick is forced to raise an eyebrow at that. “I know,” she agrees. “I had no idea until he called yesterday. He wanted to know if he was okay to bring them along, so I said they could have the basement. Diego’s getting a hotel room, surprise surprise. I offered to chip in. He still says he won’t take any money from me. I think he actually used the phrase ‘blood money’ at one point. I mean, _honestly_ , we’re all adults…”

 

“Wait, wait, wait. Go back,” Patrick says. He throws a flip-flop into the case. “You’re letting your brother – your _addict_ brother – stay in our house with his girlfriend,” he throws up his hands in mock apology, “or, sorry, is it boyfriend, now?” Allison bristles. “This is a person who you’ve never met, and you didn’t think that was worth mentioning? I thought he was in rehab?”

 

“So did I, but apparently he checked himself out a few months back. Though the centre never called me, which I’m pretty mad about.”

 

“So this person is someone he met on the inside. Perfect. _Perfect,_ honey _._ ”

 

“‘The inside’? It’s rehab, Patrick - it’s not prison. I’ll have my eye on them, Claire’s not home, what’s the problem? Jesus, our Dad just _died_. I’m glad _one_ of us is getting some love and support.”

 

Patrick has the good sense to appear sheepish. “Well,” he says, quietly, “If he’s back on his feet maybe you can ask him when he plans on reimbursing us for his treatment.” He zips up the suitcase and takes it down from the bed. “Are you gonna tell them about the offer?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

 

Allison sighs. “I think I should. I’d like their permission.”

 

He scoffs.

 

“What?” She says sharply.

 

“Nothing. Just… good luck with that.”

 

 

 

…

 

 

 

Allison can’t bring herself to open the car door. Light rain drizzles the tarmac and lands in a fine spray over the windshield. Raindrops give chase down the glass. They obscure the restaurant’s neon signage into a smear of electric blue.

 

There’s a car parked outside that she knows as Diego’s; and maybe it’s that that freezes her fingers on the steering wheel.

 

_You big baby,_ she scolds herself. _Since when did you let your idiot brother get to you so much?_

 

She’s kidding herself and she knows it. She cares so much about what the others think of her and that’s why it still hurts. There are days when she thinks – _well, screw them._ Their jealousy is vindictive, it’s immature, and she won’t apologise for her success. All she ever did was stretch the truth. She never lied.

 

Other times, though, she can’t blame them. These are days where she stares her shame down barefaced in the mirror, with puffy eyes and dark circles.

 

It was her fault, what happened to her sister. Her fault and don’t they all know it. If she hadn’t publicised, trivialised, cheapened; if she hadn’t whored the story out, once tragic accident, now dressed up, rebranded, as a supernatural conspiracy… People like him can smell it in the air. They’re sharks, and Allison of all people should’ve known that, should’ve warned them, instead of leaving them out there in open water.

 

But, it’s done now. She can’t take it back.

 

She glances at herself in the rearview mirror. There’s a flyaway curl sprung from her hair tie. She smooths it behind her ear. Come on now. She slowly reapplies lipgloss from her purse, until her hand is steady.

 

A tap at the window sends her heart racing. She turns, and it’s Luther, smiling, his coat held over his head to keep him dry. She smiles back. _Thank God for Luther._ She needs him by her side tonight. Chances are he’ll be her only ally at the dinner table. His broad palm issues a shy wave and she snorts. She winds down the windscreen.

 

He has to raise his voice over the patter of rain – “Figured you could use an escort to the door!” He gestures with his coat, a massive green duffel-thing studded with raindrops. It’s not yards away from something their Dad might wear. Might’ve worn. Luther has never been able to dress for his looks – Allison’s always thought he had a kind face, and he’s kept in shape. If he were in something sharper, sleeker, he wouldn’t look out of place at those pricey publisher’s galas. “Wouldn’t want to get your hair wet, right?”

 

He opens the door for her while she makes a grab for her purse. As she ducks out he shifts his arms a little higher, to the right, so the makeshift shelter shields them both from the drizzle.

 

“My knight in shining armour,” she teases, hand clasped to her chest.

 

He smiles, again. As he does, Allison notices for the first time how tired he looks. And perhaps it’s just the night light picking out his features in severe angles, giving him that grey wash, but it’s as if he’s aged half a decade since she last saw him. She’ll talk to him later. Make sure he’s looking after himself.

 

But for now… Luther catches her staring at Diego’s car, black, beat-up and lurking on the sidewalk with jungle-cat menace. He clears his throat.

 

“Uh, the others are inside already. Vanya caught a ride with Klaus and his friend… Dave? I think that was his name. He seems like a nice guy.”

 

Allison stifles a laugh, as her brother holds the door open for her. She wonders whether his choice of words is deliberate, or if he truly believes that Klaus has dragged a pal along for the hostile family event of the year. That’s more likely – Luther always had the romantic sensitivity of a rock.

 

They’re hit by the warmth and light and bubbling chatter of inside, and the tension in the pit of Allison’s stomach is just beginning to unspool. Luther hands the sodden coat to a scowling cloakroom attendant who looks fresh out of high school, and his disgusted look is enough to set them giggling.

 

But then she spots their table, and her heart sinks like a deadweight.

 

The twins are sat across from one another, chatting brightly. Even their body language, seen from the opposite end of the room, is sharply familiar. Klaus talks with his hands, gesturing wildly; Vanya, his diametrically opposed double, shrinks in on herself and laughs self-consciously at whatever yarn he’s spinning for the table.

 

There’s a neatly dressed guy to Klaus’ right, with an arm draped over his shoulders – and _wow, okay – this must be Dave._

 

He…isn’t what she was expecting. Everything about him is pleasantly innocuous, right down to his hair, which is curly, but not _Klaus_ curly – which is to say it is cropped and tamed rather than unleashed to stick up where it so pleases – and is that indeterminable shade between blond and mousey-brown.

 

He’s clearly within their age group; she’d hazard a guess at mid-to-late twenties, but something about him seems (…how can she put it?) a little... _daddyish_. Chalk it down to the glasses and the sensible sweater. He has an intellectual air.

 

From what she can see, though, he has a handsome face, and a nice smile. _Not too shabby, little brother_ , she thinks.

 

She spots Diego, then, last of all because he’s skulking in the corner of their booth. He hasn’t changed much. His hair is shorter. He has one arm flung over the back of the couch, but it doesn’t fool her – his shoulders are tensed under his leather jacket. His jaw is hard-set under the five-o’clock shadow he hasn’t bothered to shave.

 

Luther clears his throat, and Allison realises that she’s been stood there staring for a while now.

 

“It…won’t be as bad as you think it’s gonna be.” He says, after labouring for the right words and coming up short. He stuffs his hands into his jacket.

 

She grimaces.

 

They weave through tables and waitresses toting over-loaded trays. As they approach the table, Luther gives a small cough to announce their arrival. The conversation is silenced. Everyone turns to look. Klaus is the first to react, bounding up from his chair. He closes the distance between them like it and everything that’s happened are nothing – because of course, _of course_ he doesn’t hold grudges; Klaus’ life moves too fast to hold onto things. He pulls her into a tight hug.

 

“Allison! Beautiful Allison!” He pulls away, and wags a finger at her. “You’re late.”

 

“I know,” she says, then turns to address the others, too. “I know – I’m so sorry. Claire got carsick on the way to her grandma’s, so we had to stop at a service station and change her clothes – and because of that a meeting I couldn’t get out of was delayed – it was a whole thing,” she waves a hand. “But here I am!”

 

Allison pretends not to notice Diego rolling his eyes over Klaus’ shoulder, because at least Vanya’s smiling. If Vanya can put on a brave face, so can she.

 

Klaus steps back, still clasping her hands. “Here you are!” He repeats. He looks her up and down, beaming, and pulls her into a twirl. “Lets look at you – immaculate as always. That playsuit looks really good on you… and you’ve dyed your hair!”

 

“Just highlights,” she laughs, subconsciously touching her ponytail. She feels a bit silly, being battered by this torrent of compliments, and catches herself blushing and smiling. Throughout this cheery, Klaus-like welcome, though, it doesn’t go amiss with her that he’s talking too fast. Nor does she fail to notice the slight tremble in his hands. For a moment, her heart sinks. _Please, don’t let it be that…_

 

No, she thinks about it, and decides that these aren’t the same as the drugged-up jitters she’s seen before. He seems more _grounded_ than usual; that’s the word she’d use, even if she isn’t so sure what it is about him that gives off that effect. He seems grounded, then, if a little nervous, which isn’t so strange. Aren’t they all?

 

Actually, now that she’s really looking at him, it’s the best she’s seen him since… well, since she can remember. His ripped black jeans and lurid floral shirt aren’t inconspicuous, but at least they work as an ensemble. His usual trick is reaching into his closet and pulling out whatever mad-cap combination catches his eye. Maybe Dave, clearly able to dress like a reasonable adult, has had a positive influence. Of course, stubborn traces of Klaus-ness are still remaining. Namely, hot pink, paint-splattered doc martens and eyes lined with kohl (apparently, in the dark). She finds it more than comforting. It’s a reminder that the tough scrub and polish of all those rehab centres haven’t bleached away the colour, the soul, of the little brother she’d loved. She’d been afraid of that. She squeezes him by the arms.

 

“I should be the one complimenting you! You look so well, Klaus… you really do.” She says, softly.

 

Klaus’ smile falters, and he glances down at his shoes. For a second, Allison thinks she’s blown it _(what was it, two minutes? A new record…)_ and they both stand scrambling for something to say. Allison races through a stockpile of ice-breakers, and finds that they’re already spent – Luther stands offside, clearly uncomfortable; she can hear his feet shuffling. Then Klaus looks up, smiling shakily, and tries to prop up the limping conversation with a misjudged attempt at humour.

 

“So the old man finally kicked it, hah?”

 

Luther splutters. Allison doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

 

That was in poor taste, even for him. It’s so uncharacteristically cruel that she leans in and lowers her voice. “You… do know how it happened, right?”

 

“No,” Klaus says, frowning. “Vanya wouldn’t tell me.”

 

Allison and Luther share a look. “Actually, Klaus,” Luther begins, carefully. But he doesn’t get a chance to finish before Klaus is pulling them back to the table.

 

“You haven’t met Dave! Dave,” he says, planting himself down beside the stranger at the table. “This is my other sister, Allison. And before you ask, no, _this one_ isn’t my twin, though we do share an impeccable sense of style,” he babbles.

 

There are several groans around the table. Dave, shaking his head, grasps Allison’s hand. _Crisis averted_. Dave has a friendly smile: from here, she can see the laughter lines crinkling the corner of his eyes. She can already tell that he’s the kind of person who’ll put you instantly at ease – he’s a conflict diffuser in plaid. Exactly the kind of addition this family needs.

 

“Nice to meet you,” he says.

 

There’s an awkward moment where Vanya stands like she means to hug Allison, then decides that she can’t bare it, and her arms stand stiffly at her sides. Hanging her head in embarrassment, a lock of dark hair slips and obscures the right side of her face. But she’s wearing her hair down again, thinks Allison. That’s a good sign. She bridges the gap by touching Vanya’s shoulder, narrow and bird-like under her dark button-down, and pretends that she only imagines Vanya flinching at the contact.

 

“It’s good to see you, Van.”

 

“Yeah, you too.” She says. She smiles briefly then sits down and stares at her empty plate.

 

Because Luther has already seated himself at the end, apparently gunning for the quick emergency exit, Allison has to take the only remaining place. It’s directly opposite Diego. He doesn’t greet her, just stares her out, his dark eyes stoney as she sits, pulls off her cardigan, tucks in her chair. His hands have moved from the back of the couch. They rest on the table instead, in defence position. He’s wearing new gloves, leather ones. It beats the mittens he used to wear when they were growing up. She pours herself a glass of wine from the bottle in the middle of the table.

 

“Hi, Diego,” she says, nodding her head. “How have you been?”

 

He continues to stare at her, unblinking. Then he makes a show of grabbing and reading the menu.

 

“You’re having the soup and the chicken. Waitress wanted to take our order and you weren’t here, so…” he grumbles.

 

“That’s fine,” says Allison. She folds her arms and rests them calmly on the table, letting Diego know that she doesn’t plan on rising to his bait. She catches his nostrils flare.

 

“Y’know,” he drawls. “Some people might consider it rude to show up a half hour late for dinner.”

 

_Good_ , she thinks, bitterly. _Let’s hash this out early._ In her peripheral vision, Luther has stopped chatting with Vanya and is looking at them, ready to intervene. She offers a sideways glance to let him know that she’s got this.

 

“I already explained why I was late, Diego.” She says evenly.

 

“Oh, yeah, don’t worry, we all understand,” he snarls. “Busy, busy, busy, right? We wouldn’t expect you to blow off an important meeting for us,”

 

“Allison!” Klaus cuts Diego off, his voice shrill with desperation. “It was really nice of you to let us stay at your house,” he glares across the table at Diego, who shrugs.

 

“Yeah, thanks, Allison,” says Vanya, quietly.

 

“Yeah – it was real generous of you – you’re sure we’re not an inconvenience?” Pipes Dave.

 

“Not like she doesn’t have the room for it,” grumbles Diego. Klaus frowns at him again, and he begrudgingly holds up his hands in apology.

 

“Of course not.” Allison ignores him. “I’m glad to have all of you. It’s been so long since we were under the same roof. I just wish it were under different circumstances…”

 

The table goes quiet. In the most supreme show of bathos, the silence is broken by the arrival of soup. It’s an excuse not to have to talk, which she takes gladly. There’s a mortifying moment where she and Diego bump hands reaching for the same bread roll. She backs away, but he huffs, and offers it to her with a gruff invitation to _“be my guest.”_ It’s a start. Across the table, Klaus is wrinkling his nose at his starter – he stirs his spoon around, then picks it up and lets the soup glob back into the bowl. He makes a loud “eurgh,” sound, grabbing the attention of nearby customers who frown at them but say nothing. Allison tries to smile at them in apology, but they’ve already turned their backs – and the whole exchange goes by unnoticed by Klaus, who is busy tentatively re-tasting. He thinks about it. Then he shakes his head vigorously and pushes his bowl away.

 

“I’ve just now realised that I _despise_ mushrooms,” he says, and his expression of total disgust, melodramatic to the extreme, is enough to lighten the mood a few degrees. A small laughing sound comes from the centre of the table. It takes Allison way longer than it should to realise that it’s Vanya – _Vanya… laughing...?_

 

“I told you you didn’t like them,” Vanya chuckles.

 

Dave wordlessly picks up his plate and switches the two. The way Klaus beams at him, it’s as if Dave has just handed him a plateful of sunshine rather than a decrepit looking salad – he dives in immediately. Their domesticity is a shock for Allison. She’d assumed that they hadn’t been dating long, but here they are already, sharing knowing looks like an old married couple.

 

“So, how did you two meet, if you don’t mind me asking?” She says, cautious. She remembers what Patrick said that morning – _so this is someone he met on the inside…_ That doesn’t really sit right with her. She knows it takes all sorts; when she and Diego were still on speaking terms, when he’d just joined the force, he’d tell her the wildest stories about people brought in for possession, how some of them were folks you’d never suspect. Still, Dave doesn’t seem the type. For all his smart clothes and pleasantries he has a sort of boyish charm. He strikes her as a farm-hand turned intellectual, but that’s her writer’s brain working over time, looking for the oxymoron in everything.

 

“Well,” Dave starts. He glances at Klaus, who’s halfway through shovelling lettuce into his mouth, and hums for Dave to continue. “I’m a psychology student. And last year, some classmates and I volunteered to conduct interviews for a study on disrupted sleep in adults,” he says, stumbling a little. He doesn’t strike Allison as a natural storyteller. “…I won’t bore you with the semantics, but we interviewed a bunch of randomly assigned people, and… I got Klaus.”

 

“I only signed up for a bit of pocket money and I ended up, like, winning the lottery.” Klaus grins. “Tell them how we started going out,” he demands, his eyes lighting up as he excitedly slaps Dave’s shoulder. His cheeriness seems forced, but it’s still infectious. Even Diego, across the table, has stopped chewing in broody silence to tune into the anecdote.

 

“Well,” Dave falters. He’s doing his best to match Klaus’ nervous energy. “On the questionnaire it asks, ‘ _do you drink coffee?’_ …”

 

Klaus can’t stand the anticipation. “And I thought he was asking me out for coffee,” he blurts. “It was so embarrassing!”

 

“I’d been planning on doing it anyway. You just jumped the gun a little,” Dave assures him.

 

“Is dating a participant ethical?” Allison teases. Dave starts stammering, his face reddening as he tries to explain himself, and Klaus cackles.

 

“I didn’t include him in the final report…” Dave says, sheepishly.

 

“So what’s the next step?” She asks. The waitress comes over to clear their plates, and pulls the empty bottle out of the ice bucket. _That went fast,_ thinks Allison, frowning. Klaus has been drinking soda, Dave seems to have joined him in solidarity and Luther has never been a big drinker, which means that she and Vanya and Diego have been throwing it back between them. Somewhere in the back of her mind, there’s a warning sign flashing red. She knows this could end badly. The cruellest things they’ve said to one another have come from tongues loosened by wine or liquor. But she’s enjoying the pleasant buzz, the haze, this moment of stillness in her mind that has spent the past few months on a constant full-throttle. She gives the go ahead for the waitress to find another bottle.

 

“Well,” Dave continues, “hopefully I’ll get my PhD,”

 

“You _will_ get it.” Klaus interjects.

 

“-then I’ll try for a placement somewhere. What I really want is to open my own practice.”

 

After a jolting start they’ve managed to sink into a more comfortable place, and by the time the main course comes, Allison doesn’t feel so tense. Everyone is talking – actually talking and not screaming or hurling accusations across the table. She’s started to wonder if having Dave here to temper their typical craziness has been the key. She was a bit hurt to learn that Diego had already met him. A couple of times, actually, which explained why Dave was able to sustain a conversation with her brother. Most newcomers were intimidated by his sarcastic, stand-offish exterior. After all these years, Patrick still only tolerated Diego, but he and Dave had been chatting about some whodunnit boxset they’d both been watching. They apparently had wildly different views on who the perp was – at one point Diego had jabbed his knife in Dave’s direction and told him that _‘only an idiot would suspect the cousin, that’s what they want you to think_ ’ – but Dave took it all in good humour. Dave seems to take everything in good humour.

 

Her biggest victory of the night is sustaining a conversation with her sister. She leans towards her while the others are in the throes of their debate. Klaus has joined the fray. Allison isn’t sure he’s seen more than snippets of whatever it is they’re talking about (he’s always had a short attention span) but he’s standing in vehement support of his boyfriend.

 

Unsure of where to start, she goes for a somewhat pathetic _“Hey.”_

 

“Hey…” says Vanya, hesitantly.

 

“He’s fitting in, isn’t he?” she says, nodding towards the opposite end of the table.

 

“Who, Dave?” asks Vanya. “Sure,” she says, “He’s a good one. He helped me move into my new place.”

 

_Jesus_ , Allison grumbles internally. _Has everyone met this guy but me?_ It’s times like this that the dividing line starts to show itself. Klaus and Vanya and Diego and their little circle; Luther and Allison on the outside, looking in. She feels a twinge of bitterness. But Vanya is here, now, talking to her; Vanya is here with her hair down, with a smile on her face. That’s all that matters right now. She looks so much better.

 

The phone call they had just a week ago had had her so worried. Vanya’s voice on that line, splintered, comes back to her. She clears her throat. Rests her arms on the table, then on her lap. Vanya wraps her arms around herself, rubbing her forearms like she’s caught a chill. It isn’t cold where they’re sitting.

 

“Uh, how’s Claire? Aside from, y’know, the carsick thing…” Vanya starts, trailing off.

 

“She’s good. Great, actually – she’s just had a report card. All good things.”

 

“That’s good.”

 

Vanya sniffs while she fiddles with the end of the tablecloth. It’s another picture from their childhood. Vanya’s constant fidgeting, the need to have something to look at; anything to hold her attention rather than look right into the eyes of the person she was speaking to. It was worse with the people that frightened her. When they were kids, it was their father who made Vanya nervous. He never had a harsh word for any of them, but then, he never had a kind word either. It was rare that Vanya, or any of them, would be forced to engage with him: he tried, sometimes, but fatherhood just didn’t come naturally to him. Their mother was so warm, so loving, so clearly the driving force behind them adopting five unwanted children, that when their Dad came down from his office to join them for dinner, it was like the cold shock of waking up to the first frost after a long and balmy summer. Nobody spoke much as they ate. He preferred silence. It never bothered Luther – he was just as quiet and serious at that age. Unlike the others who joined the family when they were small – the twins as babies – Luther was adopted as an older child. He’d grown used to being on his own. He’d grown used to silence, so he and Dad made good company. She’d watch them in the garden sometimes, their father only opening his mouth to order, to point, Luther not speaking, only nodding and lifting. Their man’s busy-work was a language in itself.

 

But poor Vanya, always timid, slight, not good at lifting and terrified of miss-step under Dad’s orders never grew comfortable around the doctor. She’d distract herself when he was around, tugging at her shirt or her long dark hair. 

  
She’d do it when that awful housekeeper was around, too. But Allison couldn’t really blame her for that – there was something about that woman that gave even her the creeps.

 

Now, though, _she’s_ the one that Vanya can’t bring herself to look at. She looks at her little sister, filling out her loose clothing with sharp angles and tension, and her heart just _breaks_. It doesn’t feel so long ago that they were huddled together on Hill House’s lawn, watching their brothers clowning around; or sneaking through the hidden rooms of the House, pretending not to be frightened by the uncanny shapes of furniture cloaked in dust sheets.

 

They used to _talk_. All she wants, all she’s ever wanted, is to be someone for Vanya to talk to. Right now though, there’s friction between them. No matter what she does, it feels like Vanya will never trust her – never _really_ trust her – ever again.

 

She sighs.

 

“How are you, Van?” she says.

 

“I’m fine, thanks.”

 

“No,” she lowers her voice and places her hand on Vanya’s shoulder, so she’s forced to look at her. “Really, Vanya – how are you doing? You had me worried with that phone call the other day.”

 

Vanya looks down, a flicker of shame in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she says, reflexively.

 

“Don’t,” says Allison firmly. “You don’t have to apologise. I just want to know that you’re okay. That you’re not slipping again.”

 

“I’m not.” Vanya’s mouth sets into a hard line. “I’m not slipping.”

 

“But _nightmares?_ The last time you had one of those…” Vanya squeezes her eyes shut, so Allison doesn’t go any further. They’re both well aware what _last time_ is referring to. “I just need to know that you’re coping,” she adds, gently.

 

“I _am_ coping. You don’t have to worry, okay? I’m sorry I scared you, but the other night? It was a fluke. I’m _better_.”

 

“Are you still seeing your therapist?”

 

Vanya sniffs. She picks at the button on her sleeve.

 

“…No,” she says, eventually.

 

“Why not? I thought she was really helping?”

 

Vanya shrugs. “She was – but therapy isn’t cheap. I’ve got _bills_ , I don’t have money that I can throw away on someone telling me things I already know.”

 

There’s something of an edge to her voice when she says it that makes Allison think it’s pointed at her. She’s starting to sound as cynical as Diego. _What more can I do?_ she thinks bitterly. She’s offered her money so many times, but Vanya, like Diego, just won’t take it. As much as Patrick rants about all the handouts Klaus is getting – and he isn’t wrong, harsh as he sounds, when he points out exactly what the money will be going on – but Allison at least feels like she’s done _something_. Whether he spent it on feeding himself, or finding a place to stay, or blew it all shooting up in a back-alley, she could sleep a little easier knowing it wasn’t cash he’d risked his life for. It was a small thing, but it was something.

 

Allison wonders how tight-knit their trio would be if Vanya and Diego knew that Klaus is taking her up on her offer. She’d bet her bottom dollar that he never mentions it to them. Especially not to Diego – Klaus is leeching off of him even more than her, and at a greater expense. Diego used to have a nice apartment in the city, but he downsized to a studio a couple of years back. It was just after she’d written the book. She hadn’t told them yet. Diego gave them a whole spiel about how his new place was closer to the precinct, how he didn’t need the room anyway, and now he could save enough money to trash his shitty car for a newer model. They all saw through it. It wasn’t a coincidence that his sudden desire for a change of scenery sprung up around Klaus’ third admission into rehab.

 

The damage she caused writing the damn thing in the first place has already been done. She knows how needy her brother and sister are – they’re in an even worse place than they’d been the first time around. The proposal would help them all so much; the only thing stopping them from taking it would be their damn stubborn pride.

 

“If you’re struggling, I can help you,” she says.

 

Vanya shoots her a cold look.

 

“I don’t want your money, Allison.”

 

Allison shakes her head. “And I’m not offering it.” She closes her eyes. She’s starting to think that this is a bad idea, but she has to finish what she’s started. “There’s an opportunity for all of us.”

 

Vanya sighs, and looks down. She shakes her head slightly. “I think I know where you’re going with this, but I hope I’m wrong.”

 

“I was approached by someone who wants to buy the rights to the book,” says Allison, after taking a deep breath. “They want to turn it into a documentary series.”

 

The sound of a glass being slammed down makes them both flinch.

 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Diego says, his voice booming so the entire back corner of the restaurant falls to stunned silence.

 

“It’s a good deal.” Allison keeps her voice level, but she looks him dead in the eyes. She never fought her corner last time. They trampled all over her, they turned her into the bad guy, without ever giving her a fighting chance to explain herself. Well, not this time. “They’d do the story justice, and we’d all get a cut.”

 

“Un-fucking-believable…” Diego scoffs, the disgust plain on his face as his upper lip twists into a canine snarl.

 

“Are you asking for our permission, Allison? I thought you didn’t need our permission,” Says Vanya.

 

“I won’t give them the okay if none of you want me to,” Allison says, a little wounded by her sister’s tone. She holds her hands up in an attempt to make peace, to wave the white flag before it gets nasty. Judging by the looks on their faces, though, it’s a little too late for that.

 

“Well I vote _‘no’_ – right, guys?” Vanya shoots a look at Klaus, who has turned to watch them. His eyes are shining with concern.

 

“I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation. Of course I say no.” Diego’s fist clenches around his glass.

 

“What?” Klaus says. “What conversation are we having?”

 

Allison begins to speak, but she’s swiftly cut off by Diego jabbing a gloved finger at her.

 

“She,” he spits, “is going to let them make a movie.”

 

“It isn’t a movie…” she begins weakly, trailing off after she sees Klaus’ face fall, the disappointment stark across his features.

 

“Allison? Is that true?” he says.   


 

“It won’t be like last time.” She responds, desperately. “They’ll talk to all of us. They’ll hear everyone’s side of it.”

 

“ -but they’ll take yours. And Klaus, and Vanya and me, we’ll be the wackos. Am I wrong?” Says Diego, and Vanya nods in agreement.

 

“I don’t want to talk to the media people again. They’re insensitive. Actually, I don’t really want to talk to anyone, and I don’t see why we have to keep bringing it up...” Says Klaus. Dave places a hand on his arm.

 

Allison tries to adopt a soothing tone. “I’ve met these guys, Klaus. They’re very sensitive. They won’t make you talk about anything you don’t want to. It’ll be a second chance to tell the story the way we all want it told.”

 

“I never wanted it told. That was _you_.” He says. He doesn’t meet her eyes.

 

“You don’t get to use us to fix _your_ mistake.” Diego spits.

 

“Why don’t we hear her out before we rush to a decision?” says Luther. Diego turns on him instantly.

 

“I’m sorry, _‘we’?_ There’s no _‘we’_ – you don’t get to be a part of this. You never saw anything.”

 

There’s a pause, and the table collectively draws a breath. Luther’s shoulders tense up and Allison thinks he’s going to lunge at Diego over the table. They’ve torn into each other for much less. Instead, he manages to stay stoney-faced.

 

“She was my mother too,” he says, expressionless.

 

But once Diego has his teeth into something, it’s almost impossible to shake him off. Eyes wide, he’s half standing now, shoulders haunched like a back-alley cat, leant over the tablecloth to get in Luther’s face.

 

“And where were you when she died? _Huh?_ In bed, asleep – oblivious, like you were for most of that night, so don’t you _dare_ pretend you’re a part of this.”

 

His voice is rising over the tinkly piano. People are staring, muttering.

 

“You’re making a scene, Dee,” says Klaus. He reaches across the table and clasps Vanya’s hand. She’s staring at her untouched plate with glassy eyes.

 

“Good,” spits Diego. “Material for the sequel – might as well milk this cash cow dry, right sis?”

 

And this is where she snaps.

 

“I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the opportunity. Unless you’re content to rent out that shitty studio for the rest of your life.” She retorts icily.

 

A beat of silence.

 

“What are you talking about?” asks Klaus, and even _his_ voice has taken on a sharp edge. His hand is still in Vanya’s as he gives her a pointed look. “You mean his place on Huntington? What’s wrong with it?”

 

Diego has sat back down now, and he glowers at her. The realisation finally hits her.

 

_Oh god,_ she thinks. _Klaus doesn’t know._

 

“I moved.” Diego says gruffly.

 

“What? When? Why?”

 

“Because,” he says, slowly, still looking at Allison. “I needed the money.”

 

“I don’t understand. Did they dock your salary or something? What did you need it for?”

 

“Jesus, Klaus, you know what for!” He snaps.

 

Klaus blinks at him, looking for all the world like a deer in the headlights. She can practically see the gears in his mind clicking into place, slowly grinding out a painful understanding.

 

“You told me you had savings…” he says.

 

“Yeah, and they went on the first two rounds after our dear father cut you off. You _seriously_ never stopped to think about where the funding for all this treatment had been coming from?”

 

Klaus opens his mouth to respond, but no words come out. He gawks at Diego, his eyes flicking back and forth as he comprehends what he said, and as he does his shoulders start to drop, his ears turning pink. Beside him, Dave looks understandably uncomfortable. He probably wants to sink under the floorboards – or turn and run while he still can. Mostly, though, he looks sad. His forehead is scrunched up with concern.

 

Diego hasn’t finished. “Our big-shot sister insisted we go halves: Mister Morality over here had just given up on you-”

 

“That’s not fair,” grumbles Luther.

 

“-and now _she_ ,” he jabs a finger at Allison, “is gonna exploit us all over again. Like she hasn’t taken enough already.”

 

He stands, abruptly. Half of them startle at the screech of his chair. He pulls on his jacket, shaking his head.

 

“I’m sorry. You asked me to try. I tried, and I’m done,” he says to Klaus. Then he says to them all, “See you at the funeral.” It isn’t said, but implied, that they can lose his number afterwards. He makes a show of pulling out his wallet, slamming a fistful of bills on the table. “That’ll cover my part of the check.”

 

And then he’s gone.

 

Klaus lets him disappear before he sniffs and jumps up, turning before they can see his face to announce that he needs a smoke. Allison sees his fingers shaking as he fumbles around his jacket pockets for a lighter.

 

“I’m coming too.” Says Vanya. Klaus nods. Allison watches them go, Vanya winding her pale arm around her brother’s side, bracing all his height with her slight body. His free hand squeezes her shoulder. Their closeness stings her more than anything they could’ve said to her. All the worse because she’s the dark force that has brought them together tonight. Not their father. Not even That Night.

 

_She did that._

 

She wonders if she’ll ever be able to see her family without making one of them cry.

 

Dave stands too, to check on the twins, but likely also he doesn’t want to be sat alone with Allison and Luther at the table, where the tension is palpable. All the friendliness from before has left his face. In its place, a frown and furrowed brow. His mouth opens, then closes, as if he had something to say then thought better of it. After pulling his jacket on, he changes his mind. He turns.

 

“It might not be my place to say it,”

 

“It isn’t,” Says Luther. His abruptness surprises her.

 

Dave ignores him. “If you really want to fix this, there are other ways. Maybe you should try looking at it from their perspective.”

 

He leaves before she can respond.

 

The people around them are openly staring now – Allison, all her patience wrung out, challenges them with a glare, and they soon go back to their food. She rests her head in her hands, sighing loudly. She can feel a throbbing behind her eyes and the restaurant lights are staring to pulse. She left her migraine pills at home. She contemplates how magnificently she’s managed to screw the night up, and has to squeeze her eyes against the sudden prick of tears.

 

The waitress asks if they’d like to see the desert menu. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where to start oh gosh - well, it’s been weeks since I last updated so thank you so so much for your vested interest! This ones been in draft for sooooo long, but I’ve had an extremely hectic few weeks (side note: I’m currently sat in my new uni digs, avoiding freshers events and corridor bonding to bring you this Pile of BullshitTM [extended edition] which means that it might be a while before my next update, as I expect to be drowning in deadlines in the very near future). Thank you for sticking with this - I found the dialogue in this chapter really stilted and a bit dull so I’m going to try my best to work on that!


	4. Mors Vincit Omnia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things cool off at Allison’s place: Dave conquers laundry and childhood trauma, Klaus wishes for something stronger than camomile, and Vanya gets a boo-boo.

 

 

**PART 3**

**MORS VINCIT OMNIA**

 

 

On the ride home alone Allison turns the radio up loud. She doesn’t want to give herself the space to think. By the time she pulls up to the house, Luther’s car is already there, and he’s sat inside, rubbing warmth back into his hands. As soon as he spots her, he’s ducking out of the driver’s door to join her in the dark driveway. Her car chirps as she presses the remote lock, but other than that, the street is velvety quiet. This is one of the reasons she and Patrick chose the neighbourhood, deep in the leafy green heart of suburbia.

 

Sometimes she misses the background bustle of the city. The hum of cars, music sometimes, faintly, and if not distant sirens made their own kind of melody. She would sleep better knowing that the world still played on around her; living here is living in pause.

 

Still, there’s nothing menacing to it. Not like the Hill House silence. There are lights on in windows all around where television sets flicker like firelights, and in the violet wash you can almost make out a canopy of telephone wires overhead, the shapes of toys left out on squares of lawn. A peaceful kind of quiet. Life at rest, not in absence.

 

 

She unlocks the door, punches in the alarm code and shells her heels at the door. And _god it feels so fucking good_. Her feet started aching somewhere between the main course and Diego’s dramatic exit. She flicks on the light.

 

 

Luther shuffles in silently after her. He glances at her shoes, then at the cream carpet, then down at his own sturdy brogues.

 

“Should I-” he says, gesturing.

 

“Oh no, don’t worry. You can keep them on.”

 

 

He does. And then, because he stands dumbly with his duffel coat in his arms, she takes it to the backroom closet herself. When she returns, he’s sat himself down on the sofa. She can’t call it _making himself comfortable_ because Luther’s default setting is hyper-self-aware. He’s perched in the furthest corner, with his back stiff and his arms on his knees. He stares wistfully at the blank tv screen.

 

“I’m putting on a pot of tea,” she says, because she needs to busy herself before the others arrive, and Luther had assimilated the doctor’s distaste for caffeine. If she’d asked him directly, _can I make you a drink?_ the answer would have been a polite _no, thank you_. There’s nothing he fears more than being a bother. “Are you having any?”

 

“Please,” he says. Reflexive half-smile. He scratches his nose.

 

“Right,” says Allison. She heads for the kitchen, turning before she reaches the door to call over her shoulder: “It’s the big remote.” A few seconds later and she can hear the speakers gurgling as he picks through the channels.

 

Allison shivers when her bare feet hit the cold kitchen tiles. The nights have gotten so cold all of a sudden - and somehow, the bright, white bulb makes it seem even colder. At night everything is starker, shadows sharper; the same kitchen but a little bit different. She pulls out five mugs - they’ll be here any second.

 

 

And as if on cue, there’s the click of the door opening and the soft trample of feet. Two voices that she can’t quite make out, and Klaus, clear as a bell:

 

“- us lost. I told you to take a left at the lights...”

 

 

He sounds...chipper. A bit too light and breezy, she thinks; he’s trying too hard. Still, it’s better than the alternative, and it eases up the tight knot in her stomach. When she ducks back into the living room, Klaus has been stripped of his fur-trimmed coat, Vanya of her denim jacket. The woolly scarf has unwound itself from Dave’s neck. She watches the last part of this dressing-down, Dave unbuttoning his sweater, Klaus kicking off his boots, and it settles her nerves.

 

She almost laughs out loud at the way Dave and Vanya hover at the door in their socks; Luther-like, and a bit ridiculous. Aren’t they all a bit ridiculous? She feels like giggling, but she soon realises how unhinged she’d sound, and she bites her lip.

 

“Make yourselves at home, guys,” she says instead, nodding at the couch.

 

Dave sees that she’s got her hands full and springs into action - “Oh, let me help,”

 

“It’s fine, I’ve got it,” she protests.

 

He takes two mugs from her hands anyway.

 

“Well, I won’t say no,” says Klaus, wiggling his fingers cartoonishly. He needed no invitation to make himself at home - he’s already claimed the armchair for himself, and is sat like only he could: knees to his chest, his bare feet deposited on the armrest.

Allison notices that his long toes have been painted to match his fingernails. A fresh coat, or else he’s forgotten his habit of picking polish off. And briefly, she catches a flash of something on his ankle, hidden under the hem of his jeans. It must be a new tattoo, because she doesn’t recognise it. A pair of dice, and though she’s too far away to see what the tiny black dots total, she’d happily place her bets on the score.

 

A memory hits her out of nowhere. She’s opposite Klaus in Hill House’s kitchen. The chipped varnish of the wooden table stretches between them, freshly cleaned and smelling of lemons. He’s too concentrated to notice her watching him - the tip of his tongue poked out like that when he was thinking hard. Even as a teenager, though not so much, when he was sketching or penning some chicken-scratch poem. He’s focused here because he’s counting... what?

 

Buttons. Mismatched buttons. Swiped from sewing tins and behind couch cushions, some of them snapped right off his clothes. He had a bad habit of fiddling with buttons, pretending to Mom that he’d lost them but really keeping them for his little collection.

He places them one at a time on the table, each with a smooth “clack”.

 

What did he always say? _Seven keeps us safe._

 

They haven’t made a round seven in a long time.

 

 

 

The grown Klaus has just commandeered the remote from poor Luther. Hestops his idle channel-surfing to accept a steaming mug from his boyfriend.

 

“Oh, tea?” he says, his mouth dropping into a faux-pout. “You don’t have anything in the way of coffee?” he says to Allison, and then with a wicked twist of his lip, he adds: “mayhaps of the Irish variety...?”

 

As usual, his levity doesn’t land well with Luther.

 

“I thought you were going sober,” he says disapprovingly.

 

Klaus rolls his eyes, holding up a hand in surrender. “I am! I am - let me live vicariously through ill-timed humour, huh?”

 

Luther grunts.

 

“Tough crowd,” Klaus mumbles into his cup.

 

There’s an uncomfortable silence, in which Allison clocks some minutiae, some flicker of irritation, in Luther’s usually unrevealing facial expression. Maybe his nostrils flare or maybe there’s a tic in his jaw, but from the other side ofthe sitting room she feels it. Klaus always makes light of his issues, it’s a coping mechanism and she gets it - but damn if he isn’t playing for the wrong crowd. For those who’ve picked him up out of the pits again and again, those who’ve cleaned up after him, those who’ve trusted him and been let down by him (and that’s more than half the room) - Klaus’ unique brand of wit hits the back of your teeth like chewing on aluminium foil.

 

They sit in silence for a while after that, sipping. They’re all pretending to be interested in the movie Klaus has selected. Or maybe everyone else actually is invested, and its just Allison who can’t hold her attention at ransom for long enough to synthesise a coherent plot.

 

I really should be savouring this... she thinks, chewing her thumbnail while she scans the room. We’re here, she thinks. Here we are - there’s Vanya, and yes, her sleeves are down rather than pushed up to her elbows, but there she is, sharing a space on Allison’s sofa beside her biggest brother. She could be relishing the happy and healthy Klaus. Wrapped up in her throw, on her armchair.

She would be, if they hadn’t ruined it.

 

That’s not fair, she scolds herself. But it is, she thinks. There’s a stormy weather front forming over her coffee table. There’s electricity crackling between them. There’s something in the air that she can sense but not name. Something she can taste in the same way that the sky lies heavy on your tongue with the coming rain.

And all this without Diego. So is this just the way they are? A happy family - civil, at least - until one of them opens their goddamn mouth.

 

It’s only when the end credits are rolling and everyone is thinking of bed that Allison realises she never pulled the sheets out of the dryer.

 

It takes a lot of willpower not to burst into tears then and there.

 

 

 

Dave comes to the rescue.

If she hadn’t already taken a shine to him and his endearingly grand-daddyish sense of fashion, he certainly earns his place in her good books then. He sorts and divides the bundles of laundry with frankly militaristic efficiency - he says its the product of growing up in a house with just his mom, his aunt and a whole squadron of baby cousins - “I’m a seasoned housework champ,” he says, and admits that he actually sort of enjoys the busywork. Allison remembers the biohazard zone that was Klaus’ bedroom growing up. With every new thing she learns about Dave, they make more and more sense as a couple.

 

She offers to make up the bed in the guest room herself - Vanya and Luther have already been sent away with armfuls of bed linens to fend for themselves, and she wants to feel useful. Dave insits, she counter-insists, and there’s a whole stalemate of politeness until he finally relents. He doesn’t back down without protest, though.

 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to do it? I really don’t mind,” he says, peering at her from over his stack of pillows.

 

She waves him off, holding a door open for him. “I’ll rope Klaus into it.”

 

Judging by Dave’s snort in response, Klaus has yet to transform into domestic goddess.

 

“The stairs to the basement are pretty steep so you’ll want to watch your step,” she says. She’s already two down before she notices that Dave is no longer behind her. When she pokes her head around the corner, he’s staring at the wall, with his brows furrowed just slightly. There’s sadness in his eyes, and when Allison backtracks to join him, she realises why.

 

She studies his face. His lips are tight shut in contemplative silence. Behind them, though, she sees the beginnings of a smile. He stays like that, quiet, clearly reflecting. She doesn’t interrupt him.

 

“It’s her, isn’t it?” he says, quietly, finally.

 

The picture he’s looking at is the only one Allison kept from the House. Dad took it on the day they moved in - six sat on the main staircase, surrounded by dark wood panelling, the entrance hall looming all around them, huge but close, like the inside of a stomach. But, right in the centre of the gloom, the six of them are glowing - literally shining in the sunlight cast in from the open doors. The darkness of the House hadn’t touched them yet. They were fresh and clean, and beautiful, and happy.

She sees her young self, another self - a braver, smarter, kinder little girl. A girl she leaves further behind everyday, and she knows it isn’t just years that span that rift between them.

 _I know you_ , she says, to the Allison who wears her best summer dress, her hair still un-dyed, make-up copied painstakingly from magazines but knees still bare and ripe for scraping.

I know you, but you don’t know me.

And that’s probably for the best.

 

She knows the Luther perched behind her. She knows the boyish yellow of his shirt, and how it is barely filled out by shoulders he hasn’t grown into yet.

She even knows this Diego. Smiling here - she always forgets his dimples - did he ever really look this young? His mood swings and epic sulks were almost endearing back then. His wicked sense of humour made up for them.

 

And right in the centre of them all, with the twins pulled close to her, is Mom. She outshines them because of that look she’s giving the camera. They’re just posing, bearing straight white baby teeth because Dad said “smile!”

Not Mom. She looks right out of the frame, like she can see beyond Hill House’s entryway and the Doctor and the beady one-blink of the shutter, beyond the years, beyond her early grave, into that very corridor of Allison’s home.That look was Mom. It’s the only one she can picture when she pulls up Mom’s face in her head, though she knows there must’ve been times when she was tired, mad, sad. But for the Mom of her memory, and of this photograph, that look is nothing but love.

 

“She’s beautiful,” Dave says. It’s an understatement, and Allison can tell that he knows it. But it’s all he can offer. Grace always defied description. Physically, yes, she was beautiful. Stylish, petite, and even in her late thirties the archetypal blonde bombshell, but her true beauty was in her eyes. They were full of life.

 

“She was,” Allison says.

 

“She looks kind,” Dave says, and it takes Allison back a little. Most people stop at pretty. That is to say, the papers all stopped at pretty. There’s a reason that the photo they used on all their front pages was ten years out of date. Tragic beauty sells.

It’s a simple enough statement, probably a throwaway comment, but Dave has managed to capture everything that mattered about Grace in once word. There’s something about the way he’s looking at her, eyes burning blue and sincere, that tells her he means it.

 

“She was,” says Allison. “It takes a special kind of person to take in five unwanted children.”

 

“None of you were unwanted,” he says softly. “You can tell,” he nods at the picture. “You all look... right together. You were meant to have her.”

 

“But not meant to keep her,” Allison can’t stop herself from saying.Dave’s face falls. He looks genuinely upset. When he doesn’t go for the usual empty words, the ‘I’m so sorry’ or ‘she’s in a better place’, Allison wonders if Dave too has experienced loss - enough to know that they start to lose their meaning.

Then she remembers that he’s a psych student. It might be that.

 

“I don’t know what it’s like to lose a mother, but I do know what it is to grow up missing a parent,” he says after a moment. There’s something hesitant to him, as if he isn’t sure they’re close enough with the few hours having known each other to have this conversation. It feels right though. Normal social interactions can be thrown out the window, given the circumstances. It isn’t often you meet your maybe-future-brother-in-law on the eve of your estranged father’s funeral.

 

Dave sighs. “It fucking sucks.”

 

“Yeah.” She huffs. “...yeah. It really fucking sucks.” Her eyes drift back to the picture. Seeing Mom like that, frozen, is suddenly a lot to bear. She closes her eyes and she finds that she hasn’t stopped talking...

 

“...When it first happened, I thought we’d get better. Everyone says it gets better. But I don’t think there’s been a single day since where I haven’t missed her. And I look at all of us, and how we’re all so singularly fucked up and I know the others feel the same. We went through this massive, awful, traumatic thing and we’ve just left it inside to eat us all up. That’s what I was doing, with the book - I... I just wanted to talk about it... we never talk about it.” She lets out the sigh that has been building up inside her. When she opens her eyes, Dave is watching her, silent and understanding, nodding slightly.

 

She laughs dryly. “...Except for just now, I guess. How do you do that?”

 

He shrugs. “It’s sort of what I do.”

 

“You’re gonna be one hell of a shrink. I really just let you in on my deepest inner thoughts without you saying a word.”

 

“That’s the secret,” he says with a kind smile. “Let them do the talking. I’m mostly just paid to listen.”

 

Allison turns so she doesn’t have to keep looking at the photo on the wall - but also so Dave can’t see that she’s started to tear up.

She’s just tired.

 

“And on that bombshell,” she says, opening the door to the basement steps. Dave chuckles, though she suspects it’s just to humour her. “Let’s fix you a bed to sleep in.”

 

 

 

 

The first thing that Dave does after putting down the laundry is stride across the room and kiss Klaus hard on the side of the head. Klaus (who was in the process of scrubbing away his panda eyes with make-up remover most likely liberated from one of Allison’s bathrooms) barks out a surprised laugh. Dave is not deterred. He rests his head on Klaus’ shoulder, and his arms snake round his waist to pull him into a tight hug. They stand like that, swaying slightly (and Allison wonders if she should leave, or avert her eyes, or stay as she is because she wants them to know that their intimacy doesn’t gross her out she’s really happy for them - ) until Klaus pats Dave’s hand.

 

“What was that for? I’ve been gone for five minutes...”

 

“I know,” Dave mumbles, his face still tucked into the crook of Klaus’ neck. “S’nothing.” He sighs deeply, then finally releases Klaus from his grip.

 

“I’m gonna go get the bags from the car.” He squeezes Klaus’ hand. Klaus is staring right into his eyes, a blissful kind of glossed-over expression falling over his own (and okay maybe this is a little bit gross - this is her baby brother! he’s too little to be in love!) and he still doesn’t notice Allison stood at the door until Dave says “Allison said she’d help you make the bed.”

 

Klaus turns to face her with neck-breaking force and, hilariously, leaps back from Dave like he’s just been shocked. “Allison!” he says, too loudly.

 

“Oh don’t mind me,” she smirks.

 

Klaus blinks slowly, an expression of bafflement coming across his face as he places his hand on his chest. He follows Dave as he crosses the room with wide eyes. “Wait, I’m making the bed? I don’t know how to make a bed.”

 

“Then this is the perfect time to educate yourself,” says Allison.

 

Dave snorts. “I promise you, it isn’t hard. I have every faith that you’ll be able to handle it.”

 

He disappears up the basement steps and Klaus’ bottom lip quivers in theatrical distress. “Wait, don’t leave me! Dave - _ack_ -!”

 

The bundle of laundry smacks him square in the face and nearly bowls him over. Allison grins. _Bullseye_.

 

“That was mean!” he yells, ripping the sheet from over his head.

 

“Welcome to adulthood. Adulthood is mean. You take one end and I’ll take the other.”

 

“Bossy,” he grumbles, but he does as he’s told.

 

“Just do what I’m doing. I still can’t believe that you are a grown man and you’ve never made your own bed. What did you do when you lived by yourself and you had to wash the sheets?”

 

“...You’re supposed to wash the sheets?”

 

He yelps as she volleys another cushion at him. This one doesn’t hit him - he ducks out of the way just in time - but it still manages to express her frustration. 

 

“Yes! Yes, you are supposed to wash the sheets!”

 

“I’m just kidding!” He says, but she doesn’t believe him. She knows from experience the ineptitude of men-children. She’s pretty sure that Patrick would be living in squalor if she weren’t around to do everything - or, as he seems to see it, if the magical laundry fairy weren’t around to pick up all his rancid socks. _God, men are so fucking useless. And so fucking disgusting._

 

“You’re vile,” she says, smoothing down the covers.

 

“You are,” says Klaus.

 

“Shut up,” she says reflexively.

 

And to her absolute delight, Klaus replies, “Make me.”

 

She looks up, and Klaus is flashing her a shit-eating grin, his eyes sparkling. Her heart soars. She starts laughing - she has no idea why. Maybe it’s because it’s the first time all night that she’s looked at Klaus and seen her little brother, and not a charity case. Maybe its the same burst of laughter she’s been holding in all night. Maybe they were supposed to be tears but they got confused somewhere on the way out. Klaus is smiling at her.

She laughs harder, and then she doesn’t stop. He looks at her like she’s lost her mind - which she probably has - and she finds that she doesn’t care.

And then Klaus is laughing too, and she feels like she could float.

 

“What am I doing?” she says weakly, wiping a tear from her eye. “I think I’ve finally gone insane.”

 

“Hey, look who you’re talking to. I’m supposed to be the mental one around here. Well... me and Vanya, but out of the two of us I’m the only one who’s been put away in an actual mental institution so, yay! I win...”

 

She’s never felt her mood drop so quickly. Klaus, on the other hand, carries on as normal, a silly grin on his face as he wrestles the cushion she threw into its cover.

God, isn’t it sad. How natural it is for him to say awful things about himself.

 

“Klaus,” she says, and her sudden change in tone is enough to grab his attention. “I don’t think you’re insane.”

 

“Oh, you don’t?” he tosses the finished cushion to the headboard end of the bed, and picks up the next one. “That’s right - how did you put it to the TV lady? ‘Psychologically vulnerable, mentally scarred to the point of seeing things that aren’t there...’ Sounds pretty cuckoo to me.”

 

Her stomach drops to her feet. Shit. Shit, she _did_ say that. That self-depreciating way of thinking isn’t just him, it’s them. It’s her.

She’s the little voice in her brother’s head that tells him he’s worthless. Oh god, she’s going to be sick.

 

“Klaus,” she begins, wretchedly. “That didn’t come out the way I meant it to,”

 

“Hey,” he says, fixing her with those shining green eyes. “Don’t worry about it, okay? You weren’t wrong.”

 

That’s just it - she _wasn’t_ wrong. That’s what she’s always thought, and she isn’t alone. _Vulnerable_ is exactly the right word for it. Even Diego, up on his high horse because he indulges them their ghosts and ghouls, would have to agree. The twins were born with ‘fragile - handle with care’ stamped on both their foreheads, and the unspoken rule between the other three is that they have to be protected. And if that meant keeping volatile information from them, then it was done without second thought. Because no matter how old any of them get, Klaus and Vanya are still the babies.

 _And yet, look at all the shit we give them for not acting like adults, for not taking responsibility._ How hypocritical, when we’re still deciding what they should and shouldn’t know. She remembers what Dave said at the restaurant, about Klaus being stronger than they give him credit for.

 

He has a right to know. They have to do better this time.

 

“Dad killed himself.”

 

She couldn’t think of a neat segue, so she ends up just blurting it out.

It hangs in the air for a second, in which Klaus doesn’t react.

Allison draws a breath, waits. She studies his face. She can see the news sinking in - his eyes are flickering back and forth, looking at but not seeing the cushion he’s plumping.

 

“Klaus...?” she says, finally. Unable to bear the silence and the thought that she might have said the wrong thing. But, no. She’s in the right, and she knows it. He needs to know. And he would’ve found out sooner or later. “...Are you okay?”

 

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He doesn’t sound as if he believes himself. “I’m fine,” he says again, quietly. He stops fluffing pillows, his arms gradually slowing and coming to rest on the fresh made bed. Moving slowly, so she doesn’t spook the words starting to form in his mouth, Allison takes a seat at the foot of the matress.

 

“I thought it’d be something like that. I didn’t want to think it, but... I’m not surprised,” he says, sadly.

 

Allison bites her lip. “Did I do the right thing?”

 

He sighs. “Yeah. You did. I’m glad you told me.”

 

She wishes it were more of a consolation. She wishes she didn’t have to see her brother’s desolate expression. She wishes her sister hadn’t been too much of a coward to have this conversation sooner. He would’ve taken it better, from her. Allison never knows what to say, when it’s something delicate like this - when it’s Klaus. Eggshells doesn’t even begin to cover it. It’s walking barefoot and blindfolded on a carpet of broken glass.

 

“How?” he says. He isn’t looking at her.

 

“It was an overdose,” she says gently.

 

He nods. She isn’t sure what to do next - and then she hears him sniff. A tear rolls off his nose and onto the sheet, leaving a single spot of damp.

 

“Oh, Klaus,” she says. She takes his hand; his calloused, artists’ fingers, which are cold, like they always were even when he was little. She squeezes them tight, knowing not to push him further, that it’s enough. Weakly, he squeezes back. With his free hand, he scrubs hard at his eyes, blinking furiously.

 

“I’m not surprised Vanya wouldn’t say anything. That’s some heavy shit.” He goes for a dark chuckle, but halfway through a small choking sound rips through the laughter, and spoils any chance he had of making light of it. They sit like that for a minute, Allison rubbing her thumb over his knuckles and giving him the thinking space while he focuses on steadying his breath.

She can tell when he gets uncomfortable. His hand twitches slightly under hers, so she lets him go. He picks the cushion back up and hugs it to his chest, drawing his knees up and resting his bare feet on the bed. The number seven dice tattoo pokes out from the rim of his jeans.

 

“He shouldn’t get to do that.” His words are blunt. She doesn’t know what to say.

 

“It isn’t fair,” he continues, his green eyes shining as he stares ahead at the wall, at the picture of Allison and baby Claire. He squeezes the pillow so hard that the bones of his fingers stand out white. “It’s not fair.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

When he turns to look at her, his look is burning with a severity she rarely sees in him.

 

“He had so much to answer for, Allison.”

 

She knows he isn’t just talking about That Night. He’s never grown out of that habit of blaming Dad for his issues - and she’s sure that the clumsy way in which Dad dealt with Klaus’ illness when he was a kid has left huge, rippling damages - but she also thinks that the resentment he harbours has stopped him from taking responsibility for his own self-destructive behaviour.

 

“He shouldn’t have sent you away,” she says, and she hopes he can hear her sympathy. His throat bobs as he swallows hard. “But he thought he was helping you. In his own stupid, emotionally stunted way, I know he was trying to help.”

 

Klaus laughs without humour. “Would you do it?” he says, quietly, still looking at the picture.

 

“Do what?”

 

“Would you send your child away - send Claire away?”

 

She looks where he’s looking. At the photograph. Claire in her arms, beaming. She can smell her shampoo from here. And he’s right - from the minute Claire was born, Allison knew that she’d do anything to keep her by her side. She’d die for her girl: she could feel it deep inside her, truer than anything she’d ever felt before. When it came down to it, there was only one thing in her world that mattered, and it was her baby, the shining sun in the centre of her universe. Everything else was dust.

 

“No,” she admits. “Not for anything.”

 

He hums.

 

“I’m not saying he was perfect,” she says. “But we all show love in different ways. He did love you.”

 

“Oh, Allison,” he says, mocking her tone from before. “You know what your problem is?” She must look affronted, because he holds up his hands and softens his expression a little. “- and I say this without judgement, because there’s not one of us in this family who doesn’t have problems, and we all know that I hold the monopoly...” He fixes his gaze on her, his eyes streaked with black smudges, that make his irises all the more intense, blazing, even, in the centre. “...You try too hard to convince yourself that we were ever a normal family. That we had a Dad who loved us.”

 

He shakes his head.

 

“Dad didn’t love us. He didn’t love Mom. He didn’t love anyone or anything because he didn’t know how.” He shrugs. “And that’s the sad, sad truth.”

 

There’s a dull throb behind Allison’s eyes. She rubs her temple, and looks at her brother.

He’s wrong. She understands how he feels, but she can’t agree with him.No. Dad wasn’t able to show affection, not in such an easily recognisable way, but it didn’t mean that he wasn’t capable of love. He wasn’t a monster.

 

But Klaus is right about one thing: there was nothing normal about their relationship with their father.

 

“Tomorrow is going to be exhausting, isn’t it?” she says.

 

Klaus grins at her. “Yup,” he says, cheerily.

 

“We better get some sleep, then.” She picks up the empty laundry basket on her way out.

 

“Send David in, if you happen across him, won’t you?” He says, putting on that airy voice of his. He’s checking his reflection for signs of tears. His eyes are a little puffy, that’s all. He swipes at his under-eyes to try and remedy that. He probably doesn’t want Dave to see that he’s been upset. Part of her hopes that Dave’ll sense it, anyway. He needs a good chat with someone who knows what to say. Who won’t make it worse.

 

“Of course,” she promises, making for the stairs.

 

“Goodnight, sleep tight!” he singsongs.

 

“Don’t let the bedbugs bite,” she says reflexively.

 

“Bedbugs? In this five star establishment? I think not!”

 

She snorts. “See you tomorrow,”

 

“That you will! And hey - “

 

Two stairs up, she pauses. “Yeah?”

 

“Thank you.” He’s serious. Though his back is still turned, their eyes meet in the mirror. “For telling me the truth. It’s nice... I think the others still think I’m a little kid, y’know?”

 

You are.

“You’re welcome.”

 

 

_Hill House, Then_

 

 

She found the kittens in a potting shed in the copse of raggedy oaks behind the house. Half-starved, blind, ugly little things; when she first caught a glimpse of them in the flash of her camera she screamed. She thought it was some kind of deformed animal, pink and matted grey and writhing in agony on the wooden floor.

 

It was the scream that sent Mr Sanderson running. He’d been marking trees nearby, the ones with rot inside, for cutting. The ones that wouldn’t survive the damp season and would do better feeding grubs and worms than falling on one of the children.

He found her outside the shed door, babbling about the monster and the rotting smell, threatening to throw up Mrs Sanderson’s cheese and pickled onion sandwiches. He said he’d take a look, see what it was.

 

Her eyes were squeezed shut, but she heard the heavy tread of his boots. The solid-ness of Mr Sanderson was comforting. She heard the floorboards groan under his weight, probably all eaten up by rot inside too. And a horrible squeaking, wheezing sound - it was definitely an animal -

 

“Why’s it making that noise?” She said, fretting.

 

Mr Sanderson said nothing for a second, and then from the belly of the shed came his earthy laugh.

 

“Come and take a closer look at your monster,” he said, laughter still in his voice.

 

Allison really didn’t want to go back inside, but she trusted Mr Sanderson. She stepped up into the doorway, throwing her arm over her mouth to stave away the smell, and moved hesitantly towards the caretaker. His broad shoulders blocked her view, so she had to get right up close to peer over and look at it.

 

“Kittens,” she said, surprised.

 

“Kittens,” he confirmed.

 

“What are they doing in here?”

 

“They look like strays to me. Poor things won’t survive long without their mother.”

 

“Maybe she’s out catching food for them to eat.”

 

Mr Sanderson shook his shaggy head. “They’re not old enough, they should still be on milk. Look,” he moved to the side so she could crouch down beside him. “Their eyes are still closed, see?”

 

It was dark so she had to squint, but she looked at them, climbing, tripping, sprawling all over each other. Mr Sanderson was right. You could see lumps of grey, where their eyes would have been, but they were filmed over by a thin layer of skin. They were actually quite sweet up close, though they had little scabs and were missing patches of fur, and looked starved to the point of skeletal, their little paws too big for their tiny bodies.

 

The floorboards creaked behind them, and a figure blocked the sunlight coming in from the open door.

 

“What’s this?” said Dad.

 

“Allison has found some strays.”

 

The doctor peered over at the litter, and hummed.

 

Allison just had to ask him.

 

“Dad, can we take them inside? Mr Sanderson says their Mom has abandoned them. They’ll die if we leave them here.”

 

“That’s the nature of life, Allison. We can’t bring wild animals into the house, they might spread diseases. And how do you plan on clearing up after seven full grown cats?”

 

“We don’t have to keep them forever. Just until they’re old enough to look after themselves, and then we can let them go.”

 

“Even then, their chances of survival would be very low. How would they learn to feed themselves?”

 

“They’d have a better chance than if we left them here! If we leave them then we’re just letting them die, without even trying to do something about it!”

 

And perhaps it was the ounce of compassion that Allison had always suspected lurked inside her father’s cold exterior, or perhaps he’d planned, right then, to teach the children a hard lesson - whatever possessed him, he responded in the way she’d hoped but never really expected.

 

“Do you have a large box?” He asked Mr Sanderson. Mr Sanderson nodded, said he had one in his tool shed - he’d go get it.

 

The doctor wouldn’t let her handle them directly. He made her wrap her hands in an old bath towel, and use that to lift them carefully from the wooden floor of the shed to the box that Mr Sanderson brought, padded with a couple of his old work sweaters. She insisted on doing it herself. Somewhere in between picking up their frail bodies, feeling the life beating inside like the wings of a moth, and carrying the box up to the House, Allison fell in love.

 

Mom was not impressed. Allison was surprised at that. Mom was so caring, she wouldn’t even kill spiders, always preferred to trap them under glasses and let them out the door. But she said that the kittens could be sick, could make the children ill - Diego was still getting over a bad cold - could they not take them to a vet instead?

 

“Nearest one is two towns away, and they wouldn’t want anything to do with strays,” said Mr Sanderson, shrugging.

 

Mom relented, sighing.

 

“I’ll fetch some milk,” said Mrs Sanderson, equally displeased by the mewling box on her spotless kitchen table. She was probably picturing fleas leaping from the things, because Allison saw her walking a wide perimeter around the box to get to the pantry, already scratching at the back of her neck.

 

Mom must’ve known she’d lost her battle when the rest of her kids came barrelling into the kitchen to get a look.

 

“Klaus don’t touch them,” she said, and sighed when Klaus, having already let one of them snuffle and lick his fingers, held up his hand.

 

“Why?” he said, eyes wide.

 

“Because they might be sick, baby - just, go wash your hands. Nobody else touch them until we know it’s safe.”

 

They did as they were told, but they didn’t stop crowding round. Diego said they were ugly, but it didn’t stop him from clamouring to feed one when Mrs Sanderson came back with the milk.

 

“Allison should be first,” said Mr Sanderson, kindly. “She found them.”

 

Allison’s chest welled with pride, as Mr Sanderson lifted the first kitten with the towel, and placed it in her lap. It was the most lively one, who’d been investigating the side of the box, and when she held it it squirmed in her hands,sniffing at her. She fed it the way he showed her, a drop at a time, it’s tiny pink tongue no bigger than the tip of her little finger darting out to lap the milk from its nose. She felt special with her brothers and sister all crowding round her, on tiptoes trying to see.

 

Mom wouldn’t let her keep them in her room. She said they should keep them in the cupboard where Mrs Sanderson kept her mops and brooms. The pipes were exposed there, so they’d be nice and warm. Mrs Sanderson was just glad to get the things out of her kitchen.

 

She’d been warned by both Mom and Dad that she had to expect the worst. She’d prepared herself for the eventuality that not all of the kittens would survive, but for the first couple of days it seemed like they’d been worried over nothing. The kittens were doing just fine - miraculously, said Mr Sanderson, and added that it was all down to them being so well cared for, shooting her a wink.

 

There were seven of them - the bravest one, the one that Allison had first held, two small ones, and four in-between. But there wouldn’t be a distinction for long. They were all getting stronger on their feet, even the scrawniest ones, and they were all furring over, looking more and more everyday like proper kittens. You could hear them before you could see them, their mewls were getting so loud now. Allison would hear them fussing as she came up to the broom cupboard, and she’d open the door and see the darling little things, biting each other, playing, awake and ready for her.

 

And then came the morning when one of them didn’t wake up.

 

She thought it was sleeping, first. She knelt down next to the box, ignored the other six tripping over each other to get their feed, and stroked it like she’d started to do. With just one finger - their fur was soft now, and it covered the scars and scabs. She knew as soon as she touched it, it’s body cold and ungiving, that it was dead.

 

They buried that one in a pretty jewellery box Mom found in one of the bedrooms. Allison sobbed the entire time.

 

“Everything dies, my love,” said Mom, stood beside her in her nice blue sundress. She said they should dress smartly, and give the little thing a proper send off. “We shouldn’t be scared. And we shouldn’t be sad for too long. Death is just a part of life.”

 

“It’s not fair. It never did anything wrong in its life.”

 

“Well,” said Mom thoughtfully, pulling Allison’s head to her chest. “The best people are often taken from us early. Some people are just too good to spoil.”

 

When Allison opened the door the next morning, there wasn’t a kitten left living.

 

It took Mom hours to find a box big enough. They buried them under the tree that stood alone on the bank of Hill House’s small lake.

 

 

 _That night, she wakes to the sound of scratching. Something close, something right beside her head. Bleary-eyed, she slips out of bed, and crouches down to where the noise seems to be coming from - a spot behind her headboard. Diego’s room, except the sound isn’t muffled like something a room away. It doesn’t sound like it’s coming from the other side of the wall... more like it’s coming from inside_.

 

_Rats, she thinks, and a shudder moves through her. She wraps her bare arms around herself, trying to rub up some warmth._

_The scratching sound starts to move. Down to the floor - she jumps to her feet in surprise and it passes right underneath her, right where she’s stood. She’s content enough to crawl back into bed and leave it be, until she hears the soft mewl._

_She stands deadly still, terrified that she’ll move and make the slightest sound, and scare it away. It was one of her kittens. She knew it deep inside her. It was one of her kittens, back from the dead, or else never gone. As soon as she hears the second mewl from outside her bedroom door, she makes up her mind to follow it._

 

_Out of the door, turn right, where the pink carpet runs. She follows it with her bare feet. It‘s difficult; the scratches and the keening noises are easily missed. But there’s also something pulling her inside, like a string wrapped around her and around her kitten, that tells her exactly where she has to go. Before she realises where it’s taking her, her feet have already led her there: the back door in the kitchen. Mrs Sanderson only keeps it on a latch. Allison has never seen her lock it, but no-one would make the lonely climb to rob Hill House._

_She’s right. On tip-toes, she opens the latch, and faces the milky blue night. She doesn’t even feel the chill from the garden, because she sees it now. The tree at the side of the lake is black upon black, it’s bare branches warped from a lightning strike, so that the whole tree cringes off to the side, like it’s cowering, the trunk twisted round on itself like a snapped neck._

 

_She hears another meow. She knows what she has to do. She failed, she let them die, but now she has a second chance - now they have a second chance, if she can only get to them, and bring them up to the surface before the candle dies out in the airless box._

 

_She steps down onto the gravel pathway and doesn’t notice the sharp stones biting into the soft skin on the bottom of her feet. She doesn’t feel the cold when she steps onto the blue grass, the ground hard with frost below it. She feels like a marble on the edge of a table, like a slinky on the top step. She has to go down, to the waterside, to the tree. The force pulling her there isn’t one she can resist._

_She falls to her knees when her toe brushes the first root. The damp seeps into her nightdress, like ice-water even though fall has only just begun. Her head feels muzzy. Everything shifts around her in the half-light. She feels like she’s had too much to drink - how does she know what that feels like? The world is off-kilter, only slightly, enough that when she puts out a hand to steady herself, the tree trunk has leaped a few inches away from her. She remembers that she has to dig. Dig. She finds the spot with her fingers because it’s too dark to see. There’s a patch of dirt darker, damper and softer than the packed earth. It’s the soil that Mr Sanderson’s shovel chewed up when he dug the trench for the boxes. She starts digging with her bare hands. She should be churning up the slightly sweet smell of fresh earth - but she can’t smell a thing, only the fresh, blank smell of cold air hitting the back of her throat._

_She hits the box, clearing the soil around it until it’s free enough for her to hoist up onto the sloping bank. Her first attempt sends her sprawling backwards. The box is way heavier than she expected._

 

_The mewling has stopped. That puts the fire back into her. She knows if she doesn’t act quickly they’ll be lost to her. Panting, she manages to drag the thing out of its shallow pit, just as the full moon comes out from behind a cloud and gives her enough light to see the mud caked under her fingernails, which stand out silver like fish scales._

_Now she can see what she’s doing, it’s easy enough to find the latch on the box’s lid. It’s bigger than she remembered, which explains the weight of it. It must have been a toy chest, once upon a time._

_With a heave and a huff of breath, she pushes the lid up high enough so that it falls open of its own accord, and shows to Allison and the moon what it has inside._

_Allison looks down on the faces of her baby brother and sister. So pale they don’t look real, like two china dolls, buried by a child a long time ago, that somehow look just like Klaus and Vanya. Vanya is wearing white, Klaus is wearing some kind of school uniform, with socks that stop just below his knobbly-knees. Their small hands are crossed over their chests, over their own individual bibles, and they look up, blue-lipped, unseeing, with glass doll’s eyes._

_Allison screams, and then she wakes up again._

 

————-

 

 

Allison wakes with a start, sitting bolt upright in bed. It takes her a while to calm herself - she can still feel cold soil under her fingernails, and still see the twins’ white faces imprinted when she closes her eyes.

 

“Shit,” she curses, breathless. It takes her a minute to place herself, in the bedroom she shares with Patrick. The blinds help - the House had thick, velvety curtains, good for keeping light out and noises in. But she’d left the bedroom blinds open slightly last night, and now the morning sects the room in slats of sunlight.

 

She feels dizzy - she can hear people pottering about the house, and smell breakfast being cooked downstairs, which all feels odd. She’s usually the first out of bed.

 

Her feet poke around the carpet in search of her slippers. She finds them, slips into them, pulls on her robe. Before she leaves, she checks the full length mirror. There’s dark smudges of mascara that she hadn’t taken off properly yesterday, when she’d collapsed into bed. Her hair has fallen wrong.

 

She washes her face, sorts her hair, and brushes her teeth for good measure - and now she’s ready to descend.

 

Everyone in the house is in various stages of dress - she passes Luther on the stairs, in a starched white shirt, not yet tucked into the pants under which poke mismatched socks. He wishes her a good morning around the slice of toast he has clamped between his teeth.

 

Dave is in the living room, in a similar state, tie slung around his shoulders. He’s set the iron and board up, and she’s greeted by an impatient hiss and a puff of warm steam. Dave looks sheepish when he notices her.

 

“I hope you don’t mind, I found it in the utility. Our things got a little creased on the way down.”

 

She waves him off. “Of course. Did you both sleep well?”

 

“The bed was lovely, really comfortable.” His smile falters. “Klaus... was a bit restless last night.”

 

She hums. “It’s understandable. Is he okay?”

 

“Yeah, I think so. He’s in the kitchen making breakfast.”

 

Her panic must read plainly on her face because Dave chuckles. “Don’t worry, Vanya’s supervising.” She breathes a theatrical sigh of relief, to which he laughs again.

 

It isn’t that Klaus is a bad cook. Quite the opposite, actually. But his tendency to get easily distracted has caused a fair few kitchen catastrophes - and they’ve just installed an already over-zealous smoke detector... She feels much safer knowing that there’s an extra pair of eyes on the pot.

 

She breathes in deeply - the smell of hot food is stronger here - definitely bacon, and something sweet, cinnamon maybe. Her stomach gurgles.

 

“Is he making...”

 

“...French toast,” Dave finishes for her. “Very tasty, I can confirm,” he says, patting his stomach.

 

“Oh, I know. It’s a bit of a speciality of his. He ruined our Aunt’s good frying pan on his first go, but she sort of deserved it for letting a pre-teen Klaus within 10 yards of a hot stove.”

 

Dave laughs at that. “Well you better go and put a stop to him before he decimates your egg and milk supply.”

 

 

 

It’s a relief to see the them both in the kitchen, after her dream last night. Vanya is leant against the counter opposite the stove, still in her pyjamas, whisking a jug of milk and eggs. Klaus is brandishing a spatula over a hissing skillet, using it as an extension of his arm to gesture wildly with as he talks about whatever-it-is with Vanya. They both look okay, given the circumstances. Though Dave’s comment about Klaus’ fitful night’s sleep rings true when she looks at his face, and at the dark shadows under his eyes. They might not have been noticeable if he were wearing his usual eye makeup, but on a fresh face they were hard to ignore. Still, he seems to be in good spirits.

 

“You made breakfast!” she says cheerily, taking a seat at the kitchen island.

 

“Good morning, yes I did! Just a little thank you gesture,”

 

Vanya coughs.

 

“I couldn’t have done it without my sous chef, of course,” he obliges her, and she snorts.

 

“I didn’t really do much. All credit to the maestro.”

 

“Don’t sell yourself short! It takes real elbow grease to whip up all those eggs. Allison, please help yourself to the fruits of our joint labour.”

 

Allison has already been eyeing up the stacked plate, and doesn’t need telling twice. And as she puts probably way too much maple syrup on her plate, she thinks screw the baby weight. She needs the comfort calories today. There’s something delightfully childish about breakfast drooling with sugar.

 

“Christ on a cracker, is that the time?” Klaus pulls off Claire’s apron and tosses it over one of the stools. He’s still in his bedclothes - an oversized sweater that has the name of some college (Dave’s presumably - Klaus never bothered past his high school graduation) and a pair of Spongebob Squarepants shorts. He catches his reflection in the chrome flank of the toaster, and starts erratically smoothing his curls down. “I need to start making myself presentable, else the old man’ll be turning in his grave... can I use your shower?”

 

“Of course you can. Top of the stairs, first door on the left. There are fresh towels in the cupboard.”

 

“Lovely,” he turns and bites his lip, looking at the stacks of plates and pots and splashes of milk, and the general chaos of the kitchen.

 

“I’ll do the dishes,” says Allison

 

“That’s why I love you!” He’s already out the door.

 

 

 

Vanya pours Allison a mug of strong black coffee, and watches her drink it, saying nothing.

 

“Klaus said you told him about Dad,” she says, abruptly. Her back is turned, and she’s busying herself with the dishes. Allison cringes as a plate makes a loud crash.

 

“It came up.”

 

“You shouldn’t have.”

 

“He deserves to know. Frankly, I’m surprised you managed it for so long. I mean, God, Dad’s picture is still on the news every morning.”  

 

“You know how careful we have to be around him.”

 

“He’s an adult! You can’t wrap him in cotton wool!”

 

“I’m just trying to look out for my brother.”

 

Allison softens. Her hands tighten on her mug.

 

“I know.” She thinks about their conversation last night. “He’s stronger than we think.”

 

Vanya drops the plate she’s been washing into the sink, and there’s a splash and a spray of foam and water. Her back is turned, her hands clamped tight around the kitchen worktop, her shoulders raised like heckles.

 

“You don’t know.” She says, her voice dropped.

 

“Don’t know what?”

 

Vanya turns at that, her eyes widened, like she’s shocked at the voice that has come out of her. She shakes her head, and reaches for the pot towel to dry the dishes.

 

“I - nothing. Just, let’s just drop it. We just need to get through today, and we’ll be alright. We’ll be fine.” She’s speaking more to herself than she is to Allison, and something feverish has taken hold of her, the way she’s scrubbing at the dishes.

 

“We’ll be fine? Is someone in trouble?”

 

“It doesn’t matter - you’re not going to believe a word that I say, so why bother, right? We’ve been down this road before - jesus, fuck!”

 

Vanya shoots her hand back out of the water with a hiss, dropping the dish she’d been pulling out. She has the other wrapped tightly around her fingers, so Allison doesn’t see that she’s hurt until she lets go to grab a wad of tissue, and Allison sees the blood welling up from the broken skin.

 

“Woah - careful!” Allison sprints over to help, taking Vanya’s hand in hers. It looks gruesome, its bleeding a lot, and the whole of her palm is already covered in red - but it isn’t deep. Probably still stings like hell. “What happened?” She says, turning the tap to cold.

 

“Broken plate,” says Vanya. She winces when her fingers hit the cold jet.

 

“Keep it under,” Allison orders. “I’ve got a first aid kit.”

 

By the time she’s rooted it out and flicked the water off, the bleeding isn’t as bad. Vanya tries to reach for the band-aids herself, but Allison sits her down on a stool like a child. She apologises when she opens up one of the foil squares and the sharp smell of the antiseptic wipe cuts through. She tells Vanya that it’s going to sting, which doesn’t stop her sister from cursing under her breath when she applies it.

 

Allison feels the giggle bubbling inside of her, and she can’t help it. She laughs - and Vanya shoots her that solemn, Bambi-eyed look she’d always give when one of them teased her. “What?” she says.

 

“Since when did you get such a potty mouth?” Allison asks.

 

Vanya’s sullen frown twitches, until she’s smiling too, despite herself.

 

“I swear,” she says, mockingly affronted. Allison’s giggle turns into a snort that bursts the swelling tension from before like a pin to a soap bubble.

 

“It  just doesn’t seem like you,” says Allison.

 

“Shut up,” says Vanya. There’s no venom behind it. She’s smirking.

 

Allison pulls out a roll of bandages. “Is that really necessary?” Vanya asks, eyeing it. “It isn’t deep.”

 

“It’s across your hand, I don’t have enough band-aids for each of your fingers.”

 

She sticks one of the pads over Vanya’s fingers then winds the bandage round. There’s a moment of quiet, where she’s leant in close enough to hear her sister breathing, an awkwardness that neither of them know how to shake. How to break the silence. She finishes securing the dressing, and Vanya pulls her hand away instantly, eager to sever the lingering contact. But Allison doesn’t step back yet. They both know that she won’t be able to move past what was said before, and there’s a moment of sadness for both. This is why they never move on, why they’ve never been as close as they’d like. Vanya doesn’t know how to share things, and Allison won’t let things go. Every single conversation they have is overshadowed by that inevitability, the looming cloud that’s going to break when one of them says something wrong. Why try to fight it?

 

“What are you afraid of, Vanya?” says Allison, looking straight at her sister. Vanya stares back at her, and Allison waits for her to put up the defences again, to bite back.

 

Except she doesn’t.

 

Vanya closes her eyes, gathering herself; sighs softly.

 

“Klaus is in trouble.”

 

“That’s what you said on the phone. But you haven’t said why. Has he told you something?”

 

Vanya shakes her head.

 

“I...” her face scrunches up. She won’t meet Allison’s eye, and she’s hesitant. “I dreamt about him.” She says, finally.

 

“Your nightmare? Van,  you know that they-”

 

Vanya snaps back. “No - no just listen to me, for once.” Allison is shocked into silence. “They’re not real - I know that, alright? But sometimes when I dream things it’s like...” She shakes her head, starts looking off. “It’s like my own head is trying to warn me about something. Like my subconscious knows that something is off - I, I can’t explain it, and I know you all think I’m crazy, but sometimes I get it right, and this really feels like one of those times.”

 

“What happened, in your dream?”

 

Vanya takes a deep, shaky breath. She turns away from Allison, to clasp her bandaged fingers around her abandoned mug of coffee - long gone cold, but she doesn’t plan on drinking it. It’s a place to look that isn’t her sister. Allison lets her take her time. The voice that comes out of her is a tired, limping thing; it goes back to last year, the incident, and it takes Allison back there too. She swallows the lump in her throat.

 

“I never remember them exactly. I just get pictures, sometimes less than that - sometimes its just feelings, or words... I saw Dad first, trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t hear him or I forgot, whatever. But it was the night that he died. I didn’t know that until late the next day - remember, I was the one who called Luther?” Allison hums. Unsettling, sure, but coincidental, is what she’s thinking. “Then we were there, the House. All of us. It wasn’t a memory, it was us, now - and it looked different. Older. Rotten from the inside, and things growing everywhere. But it was still the House, still had that awful cold feeling inside, that feeling that you’re stepping out of light into a patch of shade. Like, the sun’s passed behind a cloud and summer’s turned grey...”

 

Allison shudders.

 

“And all the way through it, I had this horrible sick feeling that something terrible had happened, but I couldn’t see it yet, or I couldn’t remember it. But I realised what it was, right before I woke up.”

 

She turns and looks at Allison, her eyes sad and frightened and wet, her face back into a frown.

 

“Klaus had died,” she says.

 

Allison lets it sit between them. She lets it sink, before she goes near it.

 

“How?” she says, gently.

 

“I don’t know. I don’t know how, but he...” the words get stuck in Vanya’s throat. “...like mom. Dad too. The House got to him.” She says, by way of explanation.

 

Allison is quiet. She’s thinking of two pale bodies, side by side in a box meant for kittens. Two shocks of dark hair, two freckled noses, two eyes staring up at nothing...

 

“The House got to him? What do you mean?”

 

“That’s what it does. It gets inside you, eats you up. It got Mom, it’s taken years, but it got Dad too. Now its coming for us.”

 

“Vanya,” says Allison, stern. She grabs her sister by the shoulders, turns her so they’re facing eye to eye. “It was just a House. A House where bad things happened. The House didn’t kill Mom, she killed herself,” Allison’s voice wobbles at the end of her sentence, Vanya flinches, tries to pull free from her grip. “No,” says, Allison. “Look at me. Mom killed herself. Dad killed himself. God, it’s no wonder we’re all so messed up - have we ever even said that out loud? We need to face it now. That’s what today is all about. Truth - no more House, no more ghosts. We’re going to bury him and be done with it.”

 

Vanya says nothing. Allison tries to pull it back, reaches for Vanya’s bandaged hand and for the laughter they shared moments ago, but no such luck. The clouds are in again, and she can’t bring herself to make contact.

 

“He isn’t like them, you know,” she says, standing. “He’ll be okay. You will too. All we can do is love him.”

 

She throws the medical waste in the trash and puts the first aid kit back in its cubby. “I need to get ready,” she says, not knowing how else to excuse herself. She pushes open the kitchen door.

 

“Love didn’t save Mom,” says Vanya.

 

 _No_ , Allison thinks. _I suppose it didn’t_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bro this chapter fully sucks and I apologise for that, but it’s been sitting in my drafts for weeks now and I just needed to get it out. 
> 
> The good news is that I’m super excited about what happens next, and I’m finally moving away from Allison’s perspective (I love her, I really do, but I can’t write her for shit)! Whoo! Sorry for the lack of Diego this chapter - the good news is that the next one will be an abundance of Diego, with some Patch in the mix!
> 
> Anyway, this isn’t the best and for some reason it’s long as fuck, but if you got this far and you’re still enjoying then thank you so so much for your support! And as always, thank you for the gorgeous comments you’ve been leaving, they genuinely are the only things motivating me to continue this - they make me ridiculously happy.
> 
> (also excuse the pretentious latin title but I have to put my current uni degree to some use lol)

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @the-rivendell-librarian where I cry over these dysfunctional siblings and make art sometimes...


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